A Christmas In Burgess
by reallysmallworld
Summary: It's Christmastime in Burgess two years after the events of Rise of the Guardians. Jamie's cousin Darian, whom he hasn't seen in years, is visiting for the holidays, but will he get her to believe in Jack? Darian is content yet bored with her current life and acts too old for her age. Is a visit from the Guardian of fun just what she needs? JackxOC
1. Chapter 1: First Impressions

**Darian Bennett**

It was a very grey day.

My shoes slapped against the grey pavement as my eyes watched the cloudy, grey sky. Sure, there were browns, such as the dead grass and the bare trees, but the dull, green moss that crawled over everything blended the colors into a shade so uninteresting that it may as well be grey. I was thankful for my own cherry red coat, which was the only thing that seemed to keep me from going blind at the dullness of it all.

I wore my coat unbuttoned, despite it being winter. It wasn't very cold at all. I lived almost as far south as you could get in the US, in a small town in Georgia; it was one of those towns where everybody knew each other. It wasn't often cold here, and it nearly never snowed. I remembered how I used to write to Santa Claus every year, asking to see a white Christmas just once in my life, but every year remained grey, and like all children eventually do, I grew out of Santa Claus. Soon after went the Easter Bunny, but the Tooth Fairy took longer; I was very late in losing all of my baby teeth, you see, but I figured it all out when one year, my parents forgot to leave a quarter under my pillow or even take the tooth. I still got a dollar from my grandmother, though, which softened the blow. Cash was cash, no matter where you got it from.

I finally reached my destination, which was a neighbor's house just down the street from my own. Thankfully, I lived in one of those nice, big neighborhoods where every house was majestic and unique. I had been to those quaint neighborhoods with white picket fences and houses that looked exactly alike, and I couldn't understand for the life of me how not to get lost in those. Besides, all of the sameness would eventually blend into the dullness, and all would be even more grey. If I saw anymore grey, I was going to be sick!

Well, there were exceptions to every rule, and I couldn't help but smile as a familiar grey-coated cat slunk towards me. I knelt down and reached my hand out to Ashley - a tomcat, and don't you forget it - who immediately rubbed his head against it affectionately, purring loudly. He was a fat cat, but he was strong and well-groomed, his glossy fur seeming almost silver, glistening in what little light peeked through the clouds.

After a minute or two of cuddling, I reluctantly drew my hand back and stood up. Ashley rubbed against my leg and mewed in protest, but it was getting late. I needed to get home before long, so I had to hurry with my job there. I began the trek up the steep driveway to the garage, Ashley by my side the entire way, weaving between my legs whenever he got the chance. The neighbors weren't home, of course. They were on vacation along with half of the neighborhood, probably relaxing at some beach, which was why I was there. I was the neighborhoods pet-sitter.

I typed in the key code for the garage and rushed immediately into my work in a corner in the back. I grimly noticed that it was grey in there, too, save for a couple of tennis balls and bikes. The corner was stocked with all that I'd ever need to feed Ashley for probably a year, and a note stuck on the spelled out exactly where everything was and exactly how many treats I was allowed to mix in with his kibble, not that I really needed the reminder. I had been their pet-sitter for years. "Are you hungry?" I asked the cat. He meowed loudly in reply and rubbed his head against the bag of cat food. I filled the bowl and he began devouring the kibble ravenously.

I knelt down to pet him while he ate, talking to him - or to myself - for no particular reason. "Someone else is coming to feed you tomorrow. I'm going to go on vacation. I'll be gone in just a few hours, actually, but don't worry. You'll like the other person just fine. I'm your favorite, though, right?" I cooed. There was no response from him, not that I really expected one. Nothing but the crunching of the cat food. I laughed inwardly at myself for acting like he could understand me, but sometimes I just needed to make sound, to talk even if no one could really hear me. Eventually, though, I gave up the talking and started singing instead.

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose..."

I had only just started the Christmas song, enjoying the great acoustics of the concrete garage when I was rudely interrupted by the rain beginning to pour outside. I frowned at the thought of walking back home in that grey haze. The water would be unbelievable cold this time of year, and I shuddered, imagining already the drops of rain soaking my hair, running in my eyes, and trickling down my back; my coat didn't have a hood, and I had been stupid enough not to bring an umbrella.

I had mixed feelings about the cold. One one hand, it was crisp and refreshing. On the other, it was bitter and painful. But my general opinion of it was that it just wasn't worth it without the snow.

I looked dismally out the garage door at the rain and then turned back to Ashley. "I guess Jack Frost just doesn't like the taste of our noses," I joked, laughing half-heartedly. He kept eating, and after handing him the required amount of treats - maybe one or two extra because I liked spoiling him - and giving him one last stroke, I buttoned up my coat and reluctantly headed back outside.

I half-shut the garage door behind me, leaving plenty of room for Ashley to wander in and out whenever he pleased, though I couldn't fathom why he would ever want outside in this weather. I hurried down the driveway and to the sidewalk. Normally, I would grab the mail before I left, but I had come to do my job early that day before the mailman could do his job. I tried not to run through the rain, having read somewhere that running soaks you more than walking, though I was sorely tempted to at several times during my walk. What few trees lined the sidewalk offered little shelter, as bare as they were.

It only took a few minutes to reach my front porch, easily recognizable by the white columns that supported a balcony above it. I shed my soaked coat and shoes as I rushed through the door. Once I had wiped the raindrops from my face and swept my dripping hair away from my eyes, I was greeted with the warm, earthy tones that my house was painted with, accented this time of year with rich, deep red bows and a tall, overstuffed, forest green Christmas tree standing in the living room. I collapsed on the couch by the fireplace, which sadly, was unlit.

My mother was in the kitchen fixing a quick lunch. "How was Ashley today?" she asked, just like she did everyday.

"Fine," I answered, just like I did everyday.

"Are you all packed?"

"Nearly." My mom came around and handed me a hot dog, fresh from the microwave.

"You better hurry up. We're leaving in an hour," she warned.

I waved it off. "I've got everything under control." To prove my point, I took a long, slow bite from my hot dog, knowing that it would annoy her to no end, but my mom was cool. We would banter with each other until the cows came home (whatever that saying meant).

"Alright," she said disbelievingly. "Just remember to pack very warm clothes. It's much colder up in Burgess. It's actually snowing there right now."

Again, I waved it off. I had planned everything out long in advance. While visiting family up North wasn't exactly my idea of a vacation (I would take chilling on the beach with every other kid on school break over Burgess just about any day), I was very excited for all of the snow. A good snow day was long overdue for anywhere in Georgia. I couldn't remember the last time I had built a snowman or had a snowball fight.

I finished my lunch and bolted upstairs to my room for a few moments of peace before we left. My room was decorated very differently from the rest of the house. It was painted a light pink with brightly colored stripes every few inches. There were white shelves on nearly every wall piled high with books and smiling porcelain dolls. A white desk sat in one corner, hidden beneath a laptop, stacks of papers and pens, and a few DVDs. In the center was my queen-sized bed with pink, floral sheets. I preferred these bright colors to the darker ones my parents chose for the rest of the house; it made the atmosphere feel lighter, almost airy, but there were small touches here and there where our tastes agreed: an antique mirror on one wall, the dolls (I could never understand how people considered them creepy), the vintage sheets. This was completely my own space where I could truly relax and be myself in private.

I sighed and jumped onto my bed, expertly dodging the magenta, polka-dotted suitcase on one side and my sleeping cat, who yowled and leapt halfway to the ceiling when I landed. She was a fluffy, brown thing with splotches of orange and white here and there and a tendency to shed over anything and everything, and she absolutely loved my bed...when I wasn't on it. I got the feeling that she would be enjoying herself quite a bit during my absence over the next several days. She darted out the door with a hiss, but she was back before long. Reluctantly, she crept back into the room and curled up beside me.

I stroked her quietly for a long moment (resulting in several handfuls of fur), staring at the ceiling and just thinking. I needed this quiet time to recharge every once in a while. It was very tiring to just be me.

I knew that time was running out, so I sighed and sat up, sending the cat running again. Enough thinking. Hastily, I grabbed the last few things that I needed to pack: my bathroom essentials, some cards and other small games, my laptop and a few Christmas movies. I had to sit on my suitcase to shut it, and it was no small feat getting it downstairs. Before I could jump in the car, though, my dad cleared his throat expectantly and pointed up to my room, the light shining from the crack in the doorway standing out prominently from the darkened household. I smiled apologetically and retraced my steps back to my room, noticing as I entered that my cat had taken up her usual post and didn't even do so much as twitch when I came in.

Amidst the junk burying my desk was a small lamp that I kept on at all times, whether or not I was in my room. My parents insisted that I turn it off on vacations, though, to keep from running up the electric bill. I flipped the little switch, wincing as darkness overtook the room, but it was bearable. Some light managed to find its way through my shuttered windows, illuminating my room enough for me to see. It did, however, paint everything a rather unappealing shade of grey.

I raced out the door, down the stairs, and back to the car, perfectly prepared, rested, and ready to put my best foot forward in meeting the cousins I hadn't seen in many, many years. But a hop, skip, and a pleasant plane-ride later, I was sitting in the back of my uncle's car, leaning my forehead against the chilled window and willing myself not to throw up right then and there. I had an unfortunate tendency to carsickness, and the stifling, stagnant air in the car was certainly less preferable to the absolutely freezing temperatures outside at that very moment. Nevertheless, I politely kept my mouth shut and allowed my dad to converse with his brother, not wanting to bother anyone.

First impressions were everything, and I should know.

**Jamie Bennett**

It was very late in the day to be asleep, but with it being Christmas break, I didn't really care. It was normal to be tired of waking up early every day to head to the monotony that is middle school. I was allowed to sleep late on breaks, taking it as some kind of reward for my efforts throughout the year, and rest for what was still to come. So as you can imagine, I was very annoyed when Sophie came bursting into my room with Abby, our greyhound, squealing something unintelligible and jumping up and down on my bed until I was forced to open my eyes. "Geez, Soph. Can't you leave me alone?" I complained, throwing a pillow at her (and missing by a mile).

She didn't react and continued her harassment by shaking my shoulders excitedly. "Wake up! Wake up! Come on!"

"Sophie, what's going on?"

"Jack's back!" she giggled, hopping off of my bed and pointing to the window. I sat straight up, my interest piqued, and sure enough, he was there, smiling and waving and motioning for us to come outside. "Jack's back! Jack's back!" Sophie chanted, parading around my room.

It had been about two years or so since I first saw Jack Frost, when Pitch Black, the bogeyman, was threatening to take over the world, and I was the last light on the globe, so they said, the one child left who still believed in the Guardians whole-heartedly. The Guardians consisted of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Sandman, and now, Jack Frost, and I helped them defeat Pitch and save all of the children in the world, an impressive accomplishment at age ten, if I do say so myself. Since then, Jack had become somewhat of a big brother to me, and although he spent much of the year with the other Guardians, I got to see him every time he brought snow to Burgess.

I laughed and ran to my closet, throwing on thick coats and snow pants over my pajamas, careful not to forget my hat or gloves. "We don't want Jack Frost nipping at your nose," my mom always said. If she only knew...

My mom couldn't see Jack, and neither could most anybody else. Adults typically grew out of the Guardians and stopped being able to see them, but Jack had trouble being seen by children and adults alike. To be seen, you had to be believed in, and most kids had no idea that Jack even existed. I had been like that once. Even when I had continued to believe in the other Guardians, I had no clue who Jack Frost was.

"Who's Jack Frost?" I had once asked my mom.

"No one, honey. It's just an expression," she had once answered.

That was a long time ago. The important thing was that I believed now and that I would never stop believing for as long as I lived. I also took special pride in the fact that I had been the first ever to see him.

I raced downstairs, Sophie and Abby at my heels, and was almost to the door when Mom's voice behind us said, "And where do you think you're going?"

I halted and was crashed into by Sophie before the both of us were barreled into by Abby, resulting in a strange mess of tangled limbs by the door. Sophie whined as we got un-jumbled and stood up. "We were just heading outside to play in the snow. Looks like Jack Frost is back." I liked throwing out sentences like that, knowing that she would never take them seriously. It gave me a satisfaction similar to the kind when you're let in on a big secret.

"No, you're not," she scolded, prompting another whine from Sophie. "Your father should be back in just a little while with your aunt, uncle, and cousin, and afterward, we're going out to eat with them, so I want the both of you looking your best."

I groaned. Was that really today? "Can't we just go outside for a little bit?" I begged. Mom frowned in that way that mothers do to let you know that you've just said the wrong thing.

"What did I just say? Go get dressed. Now," she ordered tartly. Sophie and I dragged our feet back up the stairs.

As I entered my room through the door, Jack did the same through the window. I'd made it a habit to always leave it unlocked, should he ever wish to come in. "Come on? What gives?" he asked, flying over to my bed.

"Can't today. Some family's over, and Mom wants me looking nice for them," I grumbled, taking a seat on the bed next to him.

"What? Not even for a little bit?"

"I tried, but no."

Jack sighed and leaned against his crooked staff. "Do you know anything about these relatives?"

"Well, it's my cousin Darian and her parents, but I haven't seen her in a really long time. I think I was five at the last family reunion, and she was eight. I guess that would make her about fifteen, now."

"And that's all you really know?"

"Why so curious?"

"Hey, your family is my family!"

I laughed. "That is true. I do remember that Darian was fun. She laved playing games and making up stories, but that was, like, seven years ago. Who knows if she's changed?"

"Nah, people don't really change," he assured me. "I should know."

"Yeah, you're what now, three-hundred?"

"Three-hundred-and-two," he corrected. "Still as fun as ever!"

"I wonder if me and Darian will still get along." I paused a moment in thought, then added, "I wonder if you two will like each other."

"Do you think she's a believer?" Jack asked, sounding almost hopeful, but I think he knew the answer ahead of time. It wouldn't be any shock to him if she wasn't. That much was for sure.

"Well, she's fifteen, so I think it would be a bit of a long shot."

"Then, we'll just have to make her one! More fun for everybody!"

"Jamie! Sophie! They're here!" my mom called from downstairs.

"I should get going," Jack said, already halfway out the window. "I'll see you in a bit. Let me know how the whole cousin thing works out." The wind suddenly picked up, and he was gone in the blink of an eye, staff and all. Once he was gone, I shut my window against the cold and hurried to get dressed and presentable.

I nearly tripped while running down the stairs. My conversation with Jack had gotten me excited to meet my cousin after so long. The thought of having another companion who believed was great motivation. I had made it my mission in the past few years to gain as many believers for Jack as possible, trying my hardest to help him with the whole Guardian thing. I was met with mixed results. Some people just refused to believe no matter what, but no cousin of mine was going to miss out on meeting him if I had anything to say about it.

The living room was one big hug-fest. Sophie and I were embraced at every turn and greeted with old sayings like, "Look how much you've grown!" We were introduced to Aunt Ruth and Uncle Cody and finally, Darian, who was sitting stiffly on the couch wearing a very unbecoming grimace. She looked quite a bit different from the scrawny, pig-tailed girl I remembered from the reunion, but it was definitely her.

She still had the same round, childish face with big blue eyes, and she gave me a friendly, white-toothed smile that I vaguely remembered when I approached. She had grown from being just scrawny to simply petite, and she wore a long, green sweater over black leggings, her bright red coat having been discarded over the arm of the couch. Her hair was the same chocolate brown as my own, and it was pulled back into a high, wavy ponytail. "Hey, Jamie," she greeted in a honeyed, soprano voice.

"Hey," I said back. Yes, this was definitely Darian, but there was just something...off about her. The smile seemed almost forced; it didn't quite reach her eyes, and through the thin veil of makeup that she wore, I could see that her face had gone quite pale with an almost greenish tint, though I attributed that to the sweater. Abby suddenly jumped onto the couch between us, nosing her furiously. "No, Abby! Down!"

"It's quite alright," Darian assured me, but her tone sounded a little strained. "She probably just smells cat on me." She reached up and scratched Abby behind the ears, her favorite spot, and she calmed down almost instantly. "I pet-sit, so I spend a lot of my time around dogs and cats, though I actually prefer cats, to be perfectly honest."

Before I could say anything else, she turned to me suddenly and said, "I'm sorry, but where's the bathroom?" Wondering why she was apologizing for it, I pointed her in the right direction. Without so much as a polite "thank you" (though I assumed that it had something to do with the hand covering her mouth), she bolted. A few seconds later, her loud coughing and retching into the toilet down the hall interrupted the pleasant conversation that had been going on (that I hadn't been paying the slightest bit of attention to), and the adults rushed over to her aid.

Our dinner plans were cancelled that night, and I found a new seat across from the couch that Darian was now laying across, looking very drained and mumbling apologies to everyone.

"If you had said something, I would have let you sit in the front," our dads both said (at different times).

"I didn't want to be rude," she admitted sheepishly.

My mom came over and placed a glass of ginger ale on the table behind the couch. "Here you go. Are you okay? Do you need anything else?"

"No, I'm fine. Thank you. I'm really sorry about this. You don't have to cancel dinner over me."

"It's no trouble at all. We'll just eat here for tonight and go out tomorrow if you're up to it. What was I thinking, anyway? I should have known you all would be tired after the flight."

"I should be fine by then. The flight was actually wonderful. It's just a little carsickness. Thank you again." Darian took a tentative sip of the ginger ale. Where before her face had been colorless. it now blushed crimson. She was obviously very uncomfortable with all of the attention and was grateful when the adults retired to the dining room to let her rest, which struck me as odd. As children, she always seemed to have a habit of drawing attention to herself, whether she was singing or playing, and if I remembered correctly, she had relished in it. Was Jack positive when he had said that people don't really change?

My first impression of Darian: she was very odd.

**(Okay, guys, here's the first chapter. I want to hear your first impressions of it in the reviews before I continue, if you don't mind. Here, I want you to sort of get a sense of who Darian is. I promise, there will be a lot more of Jack later on. Please, review and let me know if you like this and if you like her. Love to you all!)**


	2. Chapter 2: Settling In

**Darian**

I awoke with a start, allowing myself a moment of panic when I realized that it was dark and that my surroundings were unfamiliar. I felt around frantically to confirm that I was in reality, sighing with relief when I felt the firm couch cushions and remembered all that had transpired. I must have crashed shortly after I threw up (how embarrassing); I saw that my glass of ginger ale was still half-full. I hauled myself into a sitting position, jumping slightly when something slid off of me. In the darkness, I felt that it was a blanket that someone must have thrown over me while I slept.

I swung my feet around, noticing that I still had on my shoes. I let my eyes adjust to the night and found a clock mounted on the wall. It was well past midnight, the longest that I had ever slept in a long, long time...if you could even call it sleep. I remembered being plagued with dreams of frightening images, and pressing a cool palm to my forehead, I felt that I had been sweating. Despite all of that, my stomach was feeling considerably better, and I stood up and stretched, sore from curling up on the couch.

The silence in the living room rang in my ears and was almost unbearable, and the strange shadows cast in the room made me more than uncomfortable, so I turned and wandered up the stairs soundlessly, hurrying down the darkened second-floor hallway anxiously. I found my familiar, polka-dotted suitcase propped up against one door, waiting for me, and I opened it cautiously, wincing at the slight creak the hinges made.

I dragged my suitcase into a small but comfortable guest room. The walls were painted my favorite sky blue and were decorated with generic paintings of flowers, and a queen-sized bed sat in the center. On the far wall was a draped window that overlooked the small backyard. To my delight, there was a lamp on a nightstand by the bed, and I rushed over to it, eagerly flipping the switch at its base. At once, the room was flooded with its soft electric glow. There were still a few shadowy corners left, but I could avert my eyes for the time being.

I kicked off my shoes, letting my socked feet sink into the carpet, but I didn't approach the bed. I wasn't tired at all. Instead, I busied myself by unpacking. I re-folded all of my clothes and set them neatly in the chest of drawers across from the bed. All of my bathroom essentials were already tucked in a small, waterproof case that I carried quickly down the hall to the bathroom and placed under the sink for safe-keeping. I found an outlet in my room to plug in my laptop and left it sitting on a chair in the corner, stacked with the DVDs that I had brought, ready and waiting for me to watch whenever I got the chance. The whole chore took me less than an hour to complete, after which I was sufficiently bored.

I parted the drapes at the window to peer outside. For the longest time, I watched the gentle snowflakes fall contemplatively. The last time I had even seen snow had been about two years ago, but it had only been a light flurry and didn't stick. The snow here fell thick and fast, washing the ground with a brilliant whiteness. It was wonderful and refreshing to see, but it would definitely take some getting used to.

Eventually, I became aware of how disgusting I felt. My hair was matted and damp with sweat, and a sour taste still hung around the back of my mouth. I shuffled to the bathroom, accustomed to taking showers in the middle of the night. I often took annoyingly long showers (the better for thinking), leaving hardly any hot what for whatever unfortunate soul came right after me. I took a second to figure out the knobs before turning it on, wincing again at the loud hiss of the water, echoing in the tiled bathroom. The last thing I wanted was to wake anyone up.

After calming my nerves, I adjusted the dials until the water was at an acceptable temperature, double-checked that there was a towel and robe waiting for me on the rack, and locked the door. I let down my hair first, running my fingers through the tangles as it fell in waves around my face. Then, shedding my clothes, I practically jumped into the soothing water, breathing in the steam deeply and taking a minute to relax before I settled into thinking once again.

This time, I thought through my nightmare from earlier, as I did with every one of my disturbing dreams. It helped me to work them out, to dwell on them for a little before I left them behind for good, but never truly forgetting about them. This one hadn't been as bad as most. It had been incoherent, made up entirely of flashes of blurred images and high-pitched squealing sounds, but it was still unsettling. I shrugged it off rather easily and was able to move on to more shower-related activities, such as washing and conditioning.

I shivered, emerging from the cleansing shower nearly an hour later, feeling the air chill my soaked skin and hair. I bundled myself in the robe and wrapped my hair in the towel before making a dash across the hall to my room, carrying my wadded up clothes from the day before. I threw those back into my suitcase, making myself a mental note to properly fold them later. I didn't get dressed right away, knowing that it was far too late to put on pajamas, yet feeling that it was still too early to get ready for the day. It was an interesting time of morning, the time when you could watch the horizon eagerly, waiting for the first light of day. I entertained the thought of going outside to see the sunrise for a while, wondering if it was really the same in Burgess as it was back home, but the thought of the freezing temperatures held me back. It wasn't worth it, not with wet hair.

I laid back on the bed, running my fingers over the cool sheets and quilt. Although it wasn't exactly like my bed at home (it was a little more springy than what I was used to), it would do just fine, but I ended up piling all of the pillows on the other end of the bed. I really preferred sleeping with none, and they were all too soft, anyway.

After a long while, sunlight started to trickle in through a slit in the drapes, and I heard movement downstairs. I stayed where I was, choosing to just listen for a bit. I got up and dressed only when the smell of bacon wafted up the stairs and made my empty stomach growl. I dug out a magenta hoodie and jeans and threw them on quickly, then scurried to the bathroom to pull my hair back into its customary ponytail, checking all sides in the mirror to take care of any imperfections.

As I headed downstairs, my and turned to me from the kitchen and smiled warmly. "How are you feeling today, Darian?" she asked.

"I'm doing much better. Thank you," I responded politely. Passing the couch, I noticed that she had already taken care of the glass that I had left and that she had hung up my coat by the door after I had so carelessly left it lying on the couch. I found a seat at the kitchen table and waited patiently. Slowly, the rest of the family began to file in, rubbing the sleep from their eyes. My parents sat next to me, and Jamie and Sophie took their sets across the table, looking about ready to pass out in their plates. I wondered if they had been ordered to wake up early for breakfast, though I couldn't be sure since I had probably been unconscious around the time that they were told.

I was served a plate piled high with eggs, bacon, and pancakes. I hid a tiny frown. Although I wasn't feeling sick anymore, I was still a very light eater, and I hated letting good food go to waste. Still, I thanked my aunt for the delicious meal, reminding myself to get her a very nice Christmas present for all that she'd done for me. I ate what I could, displacing the rest of it so that it looked like I ate more than what I actually had. I had mastered that art a long time ago.

The silent eating quickly grew into a relaxed conversation, and at some point during that conversation, my uncle turned to Jamie and said, "I need you to go out and shovel the drive today since we're going out to eat." I saw the exasperation in Jamie's eyes, but he still mumbled an agreement.

"I'll go out with you," I piped up, seeing an opportunity to get to know my cousin - which is really useful in finding the perfect Christmas present - and finally go out to see all of the glorious snow for myself.

"Oh, you don't have to do that," my aunt said.

"I know, but I want to." There were some murmurs about what a sweet girl I was before I excused myself from the table, blushing from the compliments. I made it my goal to go through this day without any incident that would earn me any negative feedback. Actually, I had made that my goal for the entire week a long time ago.

Later that day, my nose was stinging from the cold, and I pulled my scarf up to cover half of my face before continuing to shovel. We had made it halfway down the driveway in awkward silence, both of us shy to instigate any conversation. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. "So, how have you been?"

He paused and blinked a moment, looking a little confused, as if he wasn't quite sure that I had spoken. "Fine. Just fighting through middle school," he answered. "What about you?"

"Fine, as well. I've managed to survive high school so far." Jamie gave a nervous chuckle. "Middle school was _way _worse, though."

"Really?"

"Yeah, if you can make it through that torture, you can weather just about anything."

"Hey, Jamie!" called several voices. We looked up to see a group of kids heading across the street towards us. "Jack!" they also exclaimed, and I looked around for a moment to try and find who else they could be referring to, but there was no one anywhere near us.

"Hey!" Jamie nearly dropped his shovel as he waved to his friends. "There's someone that I want you to meet." He led them over to where I was, and I waved shyly, putting up with the fact that I had suddenly become the focus of their attention. "This is my cousin Darian."

"Hi, Darian!" they all chirped in unison.

Jamie gestured to each of them, telling me their respective names. The first was a rather imposing girl with an ironically sweet name, the second was a slender girl with a bob haircut, the next was a scrawny boy with glasses too big for his face, and last was a set of twins that I knew I would have to try very hard to not mix up. "Darian, this is Cupcake, Pippa, Monty, Claude, and Caleb."

"And don't forget Jack!" one of the twins added. I think it was Caleb. Jamie made a face at him and shook his head furiously.

"Jack?" I wondered, glancing around to make sure that I hadn't missed one.

The kids all looked up at the air beside them at once, which was very surreal to watch. "You mean...she can't see you?" Pippa asked no one in particular.

"See who?"

"Never mind about that for now," Jamie told his friends, drawing their attention away from whatever. I didn't ask any further questions, not sure that I really wanted to know the answers.

"Jamie, do you want to go sledding with us?" asked a different twin. Claude, I believe.

"Can't. Gotta shovel the drive, and we're going out to eat later," Jamie explained. We held up our shovels to show them in case they hadn't noticed before. "Maybe tomorrow?"

"Sure thing!" Monty said for all of them as they started to walk off.

"She better believe by then!" Cupcake called back.

"No promises!"

Once they were out of sight, Jamie and I got back to work. "Believe what?" I questioned after a while.

"It's kind of a long story."

"I'm here all week."

"I'll tell you over dinner," he promised, sending the last clump of snow flying over his shoulder, nearly hitting me.

"I'll hold you to that."

**Jamie**

The restaurant we went to was a very posh place, and I couldn't help but wonder how on earth Dad had managed to get us in. The tables were all covered in white tablecloths and decked with crystal glasses. A pianist was playing soft music by a tranquil pool at the entrance. I was almost afraid to touch the breadstick appetizer; it literally looked too good to eat. I watched as across from me, Darian sat stiff-backed in her chair, folding her napkin with delicate fingers and placing it in her lap. I copied the motion.

We all had to dress nice for dinner. I was forced into a collared shirt, dress pants and shoes, and a tie while Sophie was made to pull her hair back and out of her face and wear a frilly, pink, "princess" dress, as she called it. Darian looked more comfortable than us, wearing a black and white, polka-dotted dress that fell gently down to just above her ankles. The bun didn't seem very pleasant, though, what with all of the bobby pins she had stabbed into it to hold it in place. When asked, she had explained that her hair was very difficult to work with sometimes, speaking of it almost as though it were a living thing.

The waiter came by to take our orders. I was still young enough to order from the kids' menu. Thank goodness! It was just about the only thing I could read in the entire place. I ordered a simple plate of pasta. The waiter turned to Darian.

"I'd just like some grilled chicken, please." Then, almost sounding embarrassed, she added, "Kids' size." The waiter nodded and continued with the rest of our table. Noticing that she had caught my eye, she explained, "I don't eat very much." I shrugged in response. I didn't see any problem with it.

"Why don't you talk funny? Like Aunt Ruth?" Sophie asked, giggling. The question may have sounded a bit rude, but I had been wondering the same thing. I, too, had noticed that Darian spoke with a distinct lack of any southern accent, which was odd, considering that she had lived down in Georgia her entire life.

Darian seemed to find the question amusing and spoke to both of us when she answered. "My dad grew up here with your dad, so I'm not exposed to it as often, which affects the way that I speak, although it will slip out every once in a while if I'm frustrated. I'm also in chorus, which means that I always have to practice keeping my vowels and consonants clear."

I nodded in understanding. I had pretty much guessed beforehand that she was involved in music in some way. She was always singing, humming, or whistling any random tune at any given moment when we were younger.

"Jamie, what were you going to tell me earlier? Something about Jack?"

"Jack's back! Jack's back!" Sophie cheered loudly at the mention of his name, catching us both a little off-guard.

"Yeah, um, Jack Frost," I explained, figuring that I might as well come out and say it all.

"Wait, you mean like..." Darian cleared her throat and began a verse of the Christmas Song. "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose..." She stopped singing suddenly and smiled shyly. "That Jack Frost?"

"Exactly. He's a personal friend of mine."

"Oh, is he now?" she said in a light tone that told me that she didn't believe me in the slightest. "I guess that explains all of this great snow that you've been having."

"He is real. You just couldn't see him today." He had hung around us the entire time when we were shoveling, trying in any way to get Darian's attention, even flying right up to her and blowing directly in her face, but she hadn't even noticed. Jack never got close enough to touch, though. He had told me before that being run through wasn't exactly the most comfortable feeling in the world.

"And why is that?"

"Because you didn't believe. You have to believe in him to be able to see him. The same goes for all of the other Guardians."

"Guardians?"

"Yeah, like Santa, the Tooth Fairy..." I stopped, taking notice of how closely she listened, a glint of laughter in her eyes.

"No, please go on!" she insisted. "Tell me more about these Guardians."

"You're just going to make fun of me, aren't you?"

Suddenly, she frowned, her brow furrowing in consternation. "Jamie, I would never do that," Darian said, complete earnestness in her tone now. What little laughter I thought I had seen had disappeared.

"But you don't believe," I concluded.

"No, I can't say that I do," she sighed.

"I can prove it. Tonight, leave your window unlocked, and Jack can make it snow inside your room."

"If you say so..." she said doubtfully, nibbling on a breadstick.

The plan was set in motion. All that was left to do was to tell Jack about it.

**(Yeah, I know. Not much exciting stuff happening here. Just a bit more exposition and getting to know Darian a bit more, getting to know that she has a few problems. Uh-oh, she seems to have a bit of an issue with the dark...and sleeping in general. *sarcasm mode* This can't possibly come into play later. Not at all. *end sarcasm mode* Seriously, though, leave me your thoughts and theories in the reviews, and I'll try to pick up the plot a bit more in the next chapter. Just a bit.)**


	3. Chapter 3: Silent Night

**Jack Frost**

It was definitely not my idea of fun to spend my evening in a stuffy, expensive restaurant, and neither was spending my night outside a girl's room, waiting for her to unlock the window, but I somehow allowed Jamie to talk me into the latter. Maybe it was the allure of gaining a new believer, or maybe it was just the fact that I couldn't refuse a request from my first believer. Whatever the reason, I found myself sitting on Jamie's rooftop overlooking his backyard on a clear Wednesday night, throwing snowballs at poor, unsuspecting birds to keep myself entertained.

I glanced up at the full moon once in a while, wondering if Manny might be trying to get my attention in the way that the moonlight gleamed silver over the snow. He hardly ever said anything that wasn't cryptic in some way, at least not to me. The only straight answer that I had ever gotten out of him was that my name was Jack Frost, and that had been a long, long time ago.

I hung upside-down off of the edge of the roof again to look into Darian's window. Her curtains were drawn, making it nearly impossible to see anything other than a sliver of light seeping through the cracks. I pushed tentatively on the window pane, but like before, it didn't budge. It was still locked tight. This was getting annoying. Exactly how long did Jamie expect me to wait?

Abruptly, the light in the room was extinguished. I leapt off the roof and righted myself in the air before pressing closer to the window to try and get a better look through the crack in the drapes. Everything had gone still and dark. No, wait! There! A shadow! And an awfully familiar one at that.

Shocked, I pressed even closer to the glass, wishing now more than ever that I owned the tooth fairies' ability to pass through solid walls. I could feel the frost spreading in fern-like patterns underneath my fingertips. In the blink of an eye, the shadow had darted off and disappeared to who-knows-where. I could have sworn it was him. Now, not a creature moved within the room. Not even Darian.

Darian wasn't there!

"Oh-no," I gasped, flying back away from the window and dashing around to the other side of the house. If that had been who I thought it was, there was real danger in the Bennett household. I picked out Jamie's window and burst in without so much as a knock. Surprised, he looked up from the video game he had been playing, awake despite it being near midnight. Sandy wasn't going to be happy.

"Jack!" he exclaimed as I nearly crashed into his bed. "What's going on?"

There was no time to mince words, so I cut right to the chase. "Darian's not in her room. I need you to find her and make sure that she's alright."

"Why wouldn't she be alright?" Jamie switched off the game and looked up at me worriedly.

"I thought I saw-" I cut myself short. Did I really want to tell him? Did he really need to know that I thought I had seen Pitch Black in his house? The last time any of us had really seen him, Pitch had been threatening to murder Jamie, willing to do whatever it took to extinguish that last light of hope left in the world. In the end, I said nothing. "Never-mind. I just need you to do what I asked, okay?" Jamie nodded, already getting out of bed and sliding on his slippers. "I need to go, but I should be back by tomorrow."

"Okay. Jack, does this have anything to do with-?"

I left before he could complete his sentence.

**Jamie**

"-Pitch?" I finished once the wind had died down and Jack had drifted away, far beyond the reach of my voice. I went up and closed the window behind him. Did he take me for some kind of idiot? I wasn't stupid. I knew that wild look on Jack's face meant no good, and Pitch was definitely no good. It really wasn't that hard to make the connection.

I may not be a scared little kid anymore, and I was upset that he wouldn't share this kind of information with me, but I guess I could understand why. He was just trying to protect me. That was his job, after all. He and the other Guardians were what stood between the world and Pitch ushering in a new Dark Age. They thought they had him beaten long ago, but they were wrong. We thought we had defeated him two years ago when he came back, but people could be wrong twice.

I shuffled out my door into the darkened upstairs hallway. It was eerily silent now that everyone else had gone to sleep. "Darian?" I whispered, my voice the only sound in the night. There was no response. I wandered down the hall and to her room. Her door had been left open, revealing it to be dark and empty on the inside, just as Jack had said. The bed hadn't even been touched, save for every single one of the pillows, which had been stacked neatly at the foot of the bed, but the sheets remained perfectly tucked. It was certainly a strange sight.

I left her room and headed down the stairs, and I noticed that there was a light on in the living room. Upon reaching the bottom step, I was able to sigh with relief when I saw the top of Darian's head over the couch, her figure illuminated by the glow of the Christmas tree. I approached her quietly, but not quiet enough. A floorboard creaked ever so slightly underneath my toe, causing her to jump and nearly scream in surprise. "Jamie, what are you doing up?" she breathed, careful not to let her voice rise above a whisper for fear that she might wake anyone else up.

"I was about to ask you the same thing," I said, walking around to sit beside her on the couch. I saw that she had changed into a plaid nightgown but hadn't yet taken down her hair from dinner. In front of her, on the coffee table, a deck of cards was laid out in a confusing formation, the Jokers discarded off to the side by an impressive stack of Rankin/Bass holiday DVDs.

"I asked you first," she smirked, shifting around the cards a little bit.

"Fine. I was looking for you," I answered simply.

"What-?"

"Nope. You have to answer my question now."

She smiled and chuckled. "Can't sleep." She shrugged, turning her attention back to her card game. "How did you know that I was up? I didn't wake you, did I?" Darian seemed unbelievably concerned about that, still keeping her voice low.

I shook my head. "No, not at all. My friend was just concerned and asked me to check up on you."

"Friend...?" She squinted, furrowing her brow in thought before she finally remembered. "Oh! That's right! Jack Frost." Her tone became light again, sounding almost as if she was messing with me. "Well, you can tell him that I'm just fine, but thank you for the concern."

"I'm sure he'll be glad to hear that," I said genuinely. If this really didn't have anything to do with Pitch at all, Jack would be overjoyed. Perhaps he really hadn't seen anything in passing by her room.

"I'm sure. I'm sorry that I couldn't meet your friend tonight, Jamie, but I was just so bored up in that room by myself, so here I am." She waved her hand dismissively, like she didn't really care. I would have been mad, knowing that she probably didn't even try, but it was very late, and truthfully, I was very tired, but I tried not to let Darian catch onto that.

"Jack probably would have kept you company. There's never a dull moment with him," I tried to tell her. She fiddled with the cards again, a twitch at the corner of her mouth the only sign that she was still listening. "What are you playing?"

"Solitaire."

"Sounds kind of...lonely." Solo meant single. A card game that you played by yourself? I could never understand it. Games were meant to be shared.

"That's kind of the point of the game: to play alone," she said matter-of-factly. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that I sensed a threat in her tone, a wish for me to go away.

"What about those?" I nudged the movies with a finger, nearly toppling the already precariously balanced stack. Her head jerked up, and immediately, almost obsessively, she straightened them.

"I was considering maybe watching a few, but I don't want to wake anyone up."

I began perusing the titles on the spines of the cases, not daring to touch them again and destroy the neatness. They were all Rankin/Bass Christmas specials, the ones that always came on television around this time of year. I fondly remembered the classics: _Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer_, _Frosty the Snowman_, and _Santa Claus is Coming to Town_, but there were one or two that I didn't recognize. _The Year Without a Santa Claus_ at least sounded familiar, but the DVD directly underneath it caught my eye. "_Jack Frost_?" I inquired, gently slipping the case out from the bottom of the stack.

"Yeah, I thought you might be attracted to that one. I don't suppose you've ever seen it. It never comes on, not that I've seen, anyway."

"Can we watch it?"

"Are we allowed? I mean, it's the middle of the night." She gestured to the clock nervously.

I waved off her concerns. "It's fine," I told her, purposefully raising the volume of my voice to prove my point. She cringed slightly, but I handed her the DVD anyway.

"Well...okay," she finally agreed, allowing her shoulders relax for probably the first time since she came. "I have to say, it's not actually my favorite movie in the mix, but I just lost my game, so I suppose that I have nothing better to do." She traced her finger over the lettering on the cover. "But we have to watch _The Year Without a Santa Clause_ next. I love it."

I shrugged dismissively, secretly wondering how on earth it was possible to lose a game that you played by yourself. "Sounds fair enough. I don't think I've actually seen that one."

She grinned oddly. "I'm sure you have." I waited for any sort of explanation why, but she said nothing afterwards, as if it was some big secret that I had to figure out for myself. It would keep me awake for the movie, at least. Maybe that was her plan.

"We'll see. You can go ahead and start _Jack Frost_. I'm going to the kitchen to throw a bag of popcorn into the microwave." As I stood up to leave, she tugged forcefully on my sleeve.

"Jamie, no!" she protested through gritted teeth. Darian must have said it louder than she had originally meant to because she jumped back at the sound of her own voice. "I swear, you're trying to wake the whole house!"

I rolled my eyes and brushed her off. "My parents wouldn't wake up if a stampede flattened the town during the night," I assured her, only half-joking. To this day, I couldn't fathom how anyone had managed to sleep through the waves of Nightmares bearing down on Burgess. "Don't worry about it."

Before she could protest any further, I departed for the kitchen. As I waited on the microwave timer, I heard her shuffling about in the other room and the tell-tale click of the television being switched on. Suddenly, a jaunty tune that I didn't recognize - she must have already popped in the movie - blared throughout the house so loudly that even I jumped and scurried back over to the living room, where Darian was frantically mashing on the volume button to turn it down. Once the noise was back to an acceptable level, we both sighed with relief that no one had heard and couldn't help but bursting into a fit of giggles. "Darian, I swear you're trying to wake the whole house!" I cried, mimicking her tone from earlier, which succeeded in making her laugh harder.

A _ding_ from the microwave called me back into the kitchen, and only moments later, I returned with a large bowl of popcorn for us to share. I set it down on the coffee table just as the groundhog began singing a song about his shadow. Seeing the face that I was making at this spectacle, Darian nodded, as if to say that the entire movie was this cheesy - most Rankin/Bass films are, but this one was just getting weird - and began arranging her cards into one neat deck. As the groundhog started telling his story, she leaned back into the couch, chewing a mouthful of popcorn and watching with blatant disinterest.

And then, Jack Frost came onscreen.

I made a face. The puppet had pale blue skin, pointy, elfin ears, and wore - ugh - a sparkly, silver elf costume, pointed shoes and everything. "That is _not_ Jack," I stated, startling Darian. Apparently, her mind had wandered off during the movie.

She chuckled. "It is in this movie."

"He wouldn't be caught dead in that outfit! He doesn't even wear shoes!" I complained.

"Oh? And what does the _real_ Jack Frost wear?" She smiled in the same way she had at dinner, the way that told me that she didn't believe a word I said but found it interesting, nonetheless. She had promised that she wasn't making fun of me, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't have my doubts.

"He always has on the same blue hoodie. He does have white hair, though. The movie at least got that much right. He also carries around a staff."

"What's the staff for?" She turned towards me and crossed her legs, resting her chin in her hands and looking up at me eagerly, like a child at story time. It almost reminded me of when we were little, except she had always been the one telling the stories.

"He uses it to channel his powers, but I think there's also some sentimental connection involved. He once used it to save his sister from falling through thin ice and drowning, or so he told me."

"Jack Frost has a sister?"

"Had. It was a long, long time ago. Hundreds of years, actually. It was before he became Jack Frost."

She nodded thoughtfully along with what I said. "You'll have to tell me more about your friend later. He certainly sounds interesting. But for now, you chose this movie, so you're going to suffer through it with me." She swung her legs back around and faced the screen, and I saw her grimace as yet another musical number started. "Definitely not the most memorable songs in the world," she commented. I couldn't help but agree.

The movie ran on. It was some tale about how a long time ago, Jack Frost fell in love with a human girl and asked to be mortal himself to woo her. (Like that would ever happen!) In the end, the girl didn't even like him and married her perfect "knight in golden armor," and Jack had to go back to being a winter sprite, which I had to admit, as much as I didn't like the movie, would probably be just his luck in real life on the off-chance that it actually happened. The movie finally ended, and Darian cheered with relief, having long ago returned to her deck of cards for entertainment. She hurried over and switched out the DVDs, and a new song began to play.

"Did you ever hear of that terrible year way back before you were born? When Santa Claus took a holiday on the night before Christmas morn."

_Like that would ever happen_, I thought again. Glancing over, I could see Darian mouthing the words to the song and bobbing her head to the music. It was clear to me that she knew this entire film by heart, but I still couldn't recognize it, despite her insistence, and I couldn't help but frown a bit at the portrayal of Santa in the movie. I mean, giving up on Christmas because of a bad cold? North wouldn't dream of such a thing! Then again, there was also something about believers being few. That was a little closer to home, I guess.

We made it through yet another upbeat song from Mrs. Claus, and we had gotten to the part where Jingle and Jangle were riding little Vixen through the clouds, searching for any believers. Familiar puppets leapt onscreen, one with flaming hair and another with icicles hanging off the end of his long nose. "Oh!" I exclaimed, jumping up. "I remember those two! And that song!"

Darian stood with me, laughed, and started singing, "I'm Mister White Christmas! I'm Mister Snow!" Suddenly, she stopped, clamping her mouth shut and sitting - no, shrinking - back down, smiling shyly, almost apologetically. I couldn't fathom why. Her voice was really wonderful. "Yeah, I thought you'd recognize the Miser Brothers."

"I had no idea that this was that movie!"

"Most people I know don't. The rest of the movie is pretty forgettable, I guess. The Miser Brothers are the best part." A tomato red blush was quickly spreading over her face, clearly visible now that she had washed it clean of any makeup. Was she embarrassed by her singing? Also visible without her makeup were the dark, shadowy circles underneath her eyes that I just noticed.

"Darian, when was the last time you actually slept well?" I asked suddenly, concerned for her health.

She only smiled and tried to wave it off. "I'm just a bit of an insomniac, Jamie. Always have been. Don't fret over it."

"You know, I'm also friends with the Sandman," I offered. "He could knock you out like that." I snapped for emphasis, speaking from experience.

She giggled, but her eyes were far away, her mind wandering off again. "That's sweet and all, but it wouldn't help."

I wondered what she meant by that, but she kept her eyes on the movie, her gaze so unwavering that it seemed to bore a hole through the screen. I was almost afraid to ask any more. We were silent for quite a while after that until we came to a sweet ballad about believing in Santa Claus. I could just barely hear Darian quietly humming along an octave higher, hitting the highest notes with relative ease. "I love that song," she commented when it had ended.

"Funny, considering that you don't really believe," I teased, poking her in the shoulder.

"Hey!" She poked me back. "Just because I don't believe in him doesn't mean I don't believe in what he's a symbol of. Love." She gestured to the movie, reminding me of the lyrics of the song._ Just like love, I know he's there, waiting to be missed_. She continued with the list. "Happiness, giving-"

"Wonder."

Darian nodded, grinning. "Yes, wonder. I believe in all of that."

We turned our attention back to the movie. If Darian believed in all of that, maybe, just maybe she really wasn't such a lost cause, as she originally led me to think. Maybe, just maybe she hadn't really changed so much. I was encouraged now more than ever to get her to believe in Jack.

A song came on about it snowing in Southtown. "I wish!" Darian chuckled. "I haven't seen a good snow in ages! Hey, why don't you ask your friend to send some down to Georgia for a change?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" I countered.

She only laughed.

Maybe. Just maybe.

**Darian**

I eventually crashed sometime around seven a.m. Jamie had fallen asleep long before me, around the beginning of _Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer_. Our parents woke us up for breakfast at nine. The weren't really angry about our all-nighter. In fact, they seemed to find it more amusing than anything, which is why I should have expected what happened later.

I ate and dressed for the day, finally letting loose the bun, sick of being stabbed by the many, many bobby pins required to keep it up. It fell in a long, thick braid down my back. The braid stayed mostly intact with very few escaping wisps, so I saw no real reason to take it out just to pull my hair back into its regular ponytail. I went into my room, switching on the light as I entered and collapsing into the chair in the corner. I opened my laptop and logged into Facebook, unable to keep myself from yawning every few seconds.

The first notification that popped up was cutesy photo of me and Jamie, both curled up on the couch fast asleep. Twenty likes in the past five minutes. I groaned and slammed my computer shut. This would be impossible to live down.

**(Yeah...didn't end up picking up the plot so much. It's mostly more getting to know Darian and how strange she seems to Jamie. We do get a little bit of Jack here, and is that Pitch? What do you think? Okay, I promise that something really will happen by next chapter. I'm just taking my time developing this story. Oh, and I'm really sorry about not updating as fast. Internet went out. Oh, well. Review!)**


	4. Chapter 4: Maybe Just Maybe

**Jack**

The North Pole was busy year-round with Yetis building and painting toys and elves running amok and leaving havoc in their wake. Prototypes of new toys the likes of which the world has never seen drifted through the air and around the giant globe in the center, making flight through the workshop nearly impossible. I had never actually visited here anywhere near Christmas time, though, and I made myself a mental not to never do so ever again.

A runaway toy jet nearly collided into me the second that I dove through the hatch in the ceiling, an elf clinging onto its wings for dear life. The rest of my visit didn't seem to go better from that point on. It was absolute chaos in the Pole. The Yetis ran about everywhere, loading and preparing the sleigh for its big Christmas Eve flight and working frantically to fulfill any last-minute Christmas wishes. Even a few elves were actually lending a hand, carrying massive stacks of letters from children from all over the world back and forth but crashing into each other more often then not, creating a cacophony of clashing bells. I easily found the vast Nicholas St. North amidst the confusion, barking orders to just about anyone who passed by in an attempt to get everything under control. I flew up to him as he grew quiet for just a brief moment, rubbing his forehead from the stress of it all.

"Rough day?" I inquired. He flinched slightly at the sound of my voice, probably grating on his headache, but smiled, nonetheless.

"Jack!" he greeted loudly, clapping me almost painfully on the back. "Is not really good time right now. Why do you visit so close to Christmas? I've got a lot of work to do." He shouted something at a passing Yeti before I could answer, and I waited patiently, knowing that his own patience had to be wearing thin.

"It's about Pitch," I told him, once I had gained half of his attention back. He only groaned at this unwelcome news, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Let us step into my office." He forced his way through the current of elves and Yetis until we came to a wooden door as massive as he was that he slammed shut behind us. Contrasting greatly with the hustle and bustle of the rest of the Pole, North's personal workshop was cool, quiet, and serene. Ice crawled over the walls, originating from a large, frosted window at the end of the room. Toys, cookies, and other Christmas-related knick-knacks littered the numerous shelves, and a wooden workbench stood in the room's center, equipped with small, precise tools to be used for just about any job. North practically collapsed into the chair beside it, gnawing on a sugar cookie and looking absolutely exhausted. "Now, what is this about Pitch?"

"I thought I saw him not too long ago. His shadow, at least."

"Well, Jack, you know that we cannot be rid of him forever. Like us, he has been given a purpose here, and though we work to keep his actions in check, we cannot really stop him from doing them entirely," he explained.

"I realize that, but it was where I saw him that concerned me most."

"Please, go on. Oh, where are my manners? Cookie?" He took a silver platter from a tottering elf behind him and offered it to me. I shook my head no, so he shrugged and set the plate down on the workbench, grabbing yet another cookie as he did. I went on to tell him all about the situation back at the Bennett house.

"Okay, so I was waiting outside Jamie's cousin's bedroom window, but when I looked inside, she wasn't-"

"Wait a second," North interrupted, raising an eyebrow. "What were you doing outside a girl's window?"

I face-palmed and probably would have blushed if that wasn't something that I was physically incapable of doing. Did we really need to discuss this? "No, it wasn't like that!" I insisted, which only succeeded in making North more suspicious, so I rolled my eyes and had to explain further. "Jamie's cousin Darian is visiting for the holidays, and Jamie wants to get her to believe in me, so he told her to leave her window unlocked and that I would make it snow in her room, but as I was saying before, she wasn't there!"

The look of suspicion and confusion finally passed from North's face, and he gestured for me to continue.

"I was looking into her window to see why it had gone dark, but I saw a shadow pass by and disappear. I could have sworn it was Pitch. I get that creating nightmares and mayhem is pretty much his 'purpose' and all, but I'm just worried that he appeared inside of Jamie's house, of all places. That's why I came straight here after telling him to go find Darian to see if she's really okay."

North nodded thoughtfully, swallowing maybe his fifth cookie since we entered his workshop. "I can see how you would be concerned. And you're sure that this 'Darian' isn't associated with Pitch in any way?"

"You have the Naughty and Nice lists. You tell me."

"Just one of many possibilities."

"I know. Darian's uptight and all, but I really don't think that she's working with Pitch."

"If you say so."

"So what do I need to do?"

North shook his head and clapped a reassuring hand on my shoulder, which may have had the unfortunate side-effect of bruising me for a solid week. "Jack, I know you are worried. Jamie is very close to you." I nodded along with his statement, still wincing. "But I simply cannot call meeting over this one thing, especially not this time of year. If it bothers you so much, all I can say is that you better keep an eye on things down there. Make sure nothing gets worse."

"Okay. I get it."

"If something really does happen, then come back, and I will call Guardians." A Yeti burst through the door at that exact moment, shouting to North in some frantic gibberish that I was still working on understanding. Judging from North's reaction to whatever was being said, it wasn't good.

"What? Really? Again?" North rose to exit the office. "I am sorry I cannot speak longer, Jack. Go. You know the way out."

I smiled, saluting with my staff and flew out of the office after him, the door magically slamming shut behind us. I didn't leave immediately, though, pausing on the walkway railing to watch as more craziness unfolded throughout the workshop. Some elves glared warily at me as they passed, but other than a jaunty wave, I didn't bother them, knowing that North probably would need all the help he could get to solve whatever fiasco was going on a few levels below. (I heard some words in Russian yelled angrily below that probably weren't to be said in front of children.) I laughed, letting the sound ring above the shouting. I made a mental note to come back after Christmas to freeze a few elves to make up for the ones I had generously let by and flew out. I think I dodged that same elf on a jet plane on my way.

It was well past sunrise when I finally reached Burgess again, my flight slowed as I ran through what North had said in my mind. I flew to Darian's window first, but she was still nowhere to be seen. At this hour, though, that could mean nothing, so I ran across the roof to Jamie's room, which was also silent and empty. I pushed through his unlocked window, leaving it open behind me just because I knew that it bugged him sometimes, and I drifted down the stairs to see if he was anywhere inside the house, not that he was really able to talk to me with any adults around. The kid was perfectly willing to act casually around me even when others nearby couldn't see me, wanting to gain as many believers as possible, but at times, we both agreed that getting him sent to an insane asylum for hearing voices would be a little counterproductive in our quest. The only inhabitants I found in the house were Sophie and her mother in the kitchen preparing to make some Christmas cookies. I quietly slipped out without disturbing them, knowing that if Sophie noticed me, she would come squealing happily, probably bothering her mother quite a bit with the only explanation for her behavior being that she glimpsed her imaginary friend Jack.

I retreated from the house, remembering to leave the window open to be a nuisance, and looked across the street, where sure enough, I found Jamie. He and his friends played in the empty lot where snow was able to gather undisturbed by rogue toys or fences or trashcans. I noticed one extra playmate in a far corner of the lot, rolling up the midsection of a little snowman. It was Darian, her bright red coat standing out against the gleaming snow around her. Thankfully, she seemed relatively unharmed, other than how she stumbled along through the powder. I attributed that to the fact that she was still not very used to being out in all of this snow, but just to be sure, I flew over there, bringing a halt to a sled race that had been going down a small incline.

"Jack! You made it!" Jamie cried happily, leaping from his sled and helping Pippa up as well. They, along with Cupcake, Monty, Claude, and Caleb, gathered around me as I landed. One was missing. I climbed atop my staff to look over all of their heads - they had all grown unbelievably tall in the past two years - and found Darian, red coat and all, still kneeling by her half-finished snowman. She had glanced up when she had heard their enthusiasm, but at most, she looked weirded out by all of it, not understanding a reason for it. She glanced around for a source, seeing past me and through me but not seeing me, before returning to her work. She still didn't believe, not that it should have been much of a surprise at this point. I frowned and peered at Jamie quizzically, wondering about last night.

"She really is fine," he assured me, answering my silent question. "She just couldn't sleep is all, so she went downstairs. I found her, ad we stayed up most of the night watching Christmas movies." His sentence was punctuated by a gaping yawn, drawing out a few giggles from the other kids. His friends didn't seem at all confused by his statement, meaning that he had already briefed them on the events of the night. "By the way, you can always let me know if you suspect Pitch. I'm not afraid of him," he scolded. The others joined in with choruses of 'me neither.'

"Yeah, yeah," I said flippantly, not quite sure whether or not I should apologize for that. It had been a tad presumptuous on my part, but Jamie understood. I hopped off of my staff and back into their midst, kneeling down to take a large lump of snow in my hands. "Now, how about a good, old-fashioned snowball fight to liven things up around here?" The kids cheered in delight and scattered all different directions to avoid the snowball I had been forming.

"Everyone against Jack!" someone squealed, but I couldn't tell who. The had all hidden behind makeshift forts. The twins dove behind the high snowdrift they had been sledding down earlier, Pippa was slender enough to use a nearby tree for cover, and Jamie was holding up his sled for a shield. Cupcake just didn't care and stood challengingly out in the open, and Monty had fallen face-first into the snow while scrambling for protection. I didn't even get a chance to remark on the unfair odds before I was pelted from all sides. I batted several snowballs away with my staff, but I really had to hand it to these kids. Their aim was getting a lot better.

"You guys are going to lose this fight!" I laughed, dishing out snowballs almost as fast as all of them combined. (Magic wasn't considered cheating, was it? Who cares?) Monty was hit in the back of the head, causing him to fall forward once again. A snowball hit Jamie so hard that even with his sled to protect him from the blow, he was knocked onto his back. I got in a good shot to Pippa's face at one point, causing her to cough and sputter, but it was all in good fun. Their cheers and laughter rang through the air, and eventually, what few rules were set were abandoned, and it became a snowy free-for-all.

All except one.

Darian avoided the fun and continued to work on her slightly lopsided snowman, alienated partly due to the fact that she couldn't completely understand all that was happening without being able to see me. She carefully dodged any projectiles that wandered her way and was currently carving a crude face into the head of her snowman, her usually deft fingers made clumsy by the thick gloves that she wasn't quite used to wearing. She appeared to be frowning (so did her snowman) and almost seemed to scoff at the snowball fight whenever she glanced up from her work.

I rolled my eyes at her odd behavior. Really? How uptight could you get? She needed a little bit of fun, and as the Guardian of fun, it was my duty to give it to her, whether she thought she wanted it or not. I knelt down again, gathering up as much snow that would fit in both hands, and packed it into a large, dense sphere. After adding a bit of my magic (the final step in the perfect snowball), it left my hands and flew through the air in a graceful arc, aimed directly at the back of her head. It hit its mark, like I knew it would, and the impact sent her face-first into a pile of snow. (She had already been kneeling to concentrate on her diminutive snowman, so it wasn't really a long fall.)

There were some cheers and laughs at what I had done, but they quieted down to concerned murmurs when we all realized that she wasn't giggling with us, and she hadn't picked herself up yet. "Um, Darian?" Jamie called worriedly to his cousin. She shifted. At least she wasn't dead.

**Darian**

I wanted to die. Or cry. But neither was exactly acceptable in my situation, so I managed to refrain from both.

My head hurt. It wasn't exactly the snowball's fault, nor was it the person's who had thrown it, but it certainly hadn't helped matters. There were quite a few major downsides to staying awake all night, and perhaps my least favorite on that long, long list were probably the headaches that came in the mornings. (Well, that and death.) It felt like thousands of knives were being hammered into my brain every second that I kept my eyes open. If anything, the bitter, biting cold only seemed to sharpen those blades.

In all honesty, though, I wasn't truly mad at whoever had thrown the snowball at me. It was all in good fun, and I was fair game, sitting out in the open like that. I really had been asking for it, even though I thought that I had made it abundantly clear that I didn't want to be bothered and left to my snowman. It was almost funny if I thought about it, but the pounding in my skull kept me from laughing, and the ever-watchful eyes of others kept me from crying. "Um, Darian?" called Jamie from somewhere behind me, his voice muffled by the snow that my head was buried in. I groaned quietly to myself, not loud enough to be heard by anyone else, and dragged myself out of the whiteness.

As I cleared my vision, spitting snow and shaking it from my face (my gloves were too coated with the substance to be of any use in wiping it off), I saw Jamie's relieved smile. I tried to return it and assure him that everything was alright, but for whatever reason, I seemed only able to scowl. My headache decided at that moment to throb so painfully that I gasped and nearly fell backwards from the dizziness it left me with. I pinched the bridge of my nose with thick, uncomfortable gloves, shaking my head and squinting my eyes shut, wishing with all of my might that the shooting pain would go away. "I'm going back inside," I muttered, hauling myself to my unsteady feet.

Nobody questioned me as I trudged away. (Thank goodness! Any sound right then felt as if I were being stabbed.) A hop, skip, and a jump across the street later, I was back inside Jamie's house, my numb face suddenly assaulted by a wave of warm air emanating from the fireplace in the den. I shed my coat and every other layer underneath that until I was left in a long-sleeved t-shirt, sweats, and socks that I had managed to keep dry out in this winter weather. My mother had once taught me a trick of wrapping plastic bags around my feet inside of my boots to keep any snow out.

I collapsed onto the couch, closing my eyes and allowing the sharp pain to subside into nothing but a dull ache. I must have fallen asleep sometime after that because the next thing I knew, Abby was nosing me awake. The headache had mostly vanished by then, and all of my frozen extremities had warmed to their proper temperature. I scratched the dog behind the ears and checked the clock. Thirty minutes had passed since I entered the house.

I became aware of an intoxicatingly sweet scent wafting my way, and dreamlike, I followed my nose into the kitchen, where a flour-coated Sophie and my aunt were removing a fresh batch of sugar cookies from the oven. My aunt noticed me and beckoned for me to join them. "How are you liking all of this snow?" she asked, setting the burning hot pan on the counter to cool.

I smiled and shrugged, eyeing the cookies hungrily, mouth watering. Breakfast suddenly seemed ages ago. "It's a lot of fun, but the cold is going to take some getting used to."

"You better keep bundling up. We don't want Jack Frost nipping at your nose."

I had to stifle a giggle, remembering all that Jamie had told me. "I wouldn't worry about that."

Sophie seemed to catch onto our conversation suddenly, and she brought her attention away from the precious sweets for just a moment to speak with me. "Do you believe in Jack yet?" she inquired, staring up at me expectantly with her one green eye that wasn't concealed behind her wily blonde hair.

I bit my lip, unsure of how to respond. On the one hand, I didn't want to disappoint her. I really had grown fond of my youngest cousin during my stay. On the other hand, I couldn't truthfully say that I did and wondered if she, like Jamie, somehow knew if I was lying about being able to see their shared imaginary friend. Luckily, my aunt saved me from my awkward situation.

"Would you like to help us frost the cookies?" she interjected, gesturing to an already cooled tray of confections set on the stovetop. I nodded enthusiastically, always willing to lend a hand.

Sophie had already mixed the frosting earlier. All that was left was for us to fill the bags, which I had never done before. I realized too late that the metal tip went into the bag first, and I spent several minutes after that epiphany scooping and squeezing globs of the sweet substance back into the bowl to start over. By the time I had fixed my mistake, hoping that no one had really noticed, my hands were sticky with frosting, and Sophie and my aunt had already finished over half of the pan. I joined them quickly, absentmindedly brushing a rogue strand of hair from my face while I worked.

We finished our task and paused to admire our work. Mine were definitely not the best looking of the bunch. I wasn't used to using frosting as an artistic medium. Paint or pencil? Sure. But snow or frosting? My handiwork seemed sloppy at best.

Sophie looked up at me while we rested, the other tray still too hot to pile any frosting on without it melting right off, and chuckled. I remembered that when I had pushed the hair out of my face that my hands had been covered with frosting, and sure enough, a white streak dashed across my forehead. Despite my ever-present exhaustion, I joined in on her laughter. I really did look funny, and now that the headache had died down considerably, I felt a little more free. Besides, she was six. What harm could a little cutting loose around her possibly do?

"Do I have something on my face?" I asked dumbly, causing her to snicker louder.

"You're silly!" she snorted.

I dipped my finger into the frosting bowl and ran it across her cheek playfully. Now we both looked funny. "So are you!" I replied. We both burst into a fit of giggles. I thought Sophie was about to fall over laughing - how much sugar had she consumed that morning? - and maybe I looked just about the same way.

"Do you want to come play with me in my room?" she asked, taking my hand. "Mommy won't let me have a snowball fight with the big kids." That was understandable. I had feared for my life back on dodge-ball days in middle school. Teenagers didn't hold back, and some had very, very good arms. I remembered the hard impact of the snowball from earlier and could almost still feel its sting.

"Sure," I agreed, allowing her to drag me up the stairs. Why the heck not? No one was around.

As we ran past Jamie's open door, I felt an unexpected chilly breeze wash over me, and a yanked Sophie to a halt to investigate. I rolled my eyes and scoffed. His window had been left wide open, allowing snowflakes to drift in and soak the floor. I hurried over and closed it, keeping my hands against the cool glass as I considered locking it, as well. In the end, I didn't, knowing that it would inevitably get me into unwanted trouble with my cousin who so fervently believed that his friend came through the window. I took my hands away, observing how the frost quickly grew to conceal the handprints I had embedded into it. With a brief sigh, I continued following Sophie down the hall.

**Jack**

I watched, crestfallen, as Darian strode away and disappeared behind Jamie's picket fence. That had been very odd. I couldn't remember the last time that I hadn't gotten anyone to have fun. I turned to Jamie, who looked just as confused and unsettled by the event as I was, if not even more so. "Maybe some people just can't believe?" I wondered, breaking the stifling silence that had settled over all of us.

"No. I just know that we can get her to see you," he insisted, determined. "She's still full of hope, wonder, and fun, I think, even if she just hides it very well sometimes. You said it yourself: people don't really change. The same old Darian just has to be in there somewhere."

"I would be lying if I said that I had never been wrong before," I said, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

"Honestly, I think she's just tired. I told you we stayed up all night. I don't know how she handles that all the time. I feel crummy enough after just last night." He rubbed his forehead to prove his point.

"Wait, what?"

"She told me that she's a bit of an insomniac. Apparently, she doesn't really sleep well that often," he explained.

"Why is that?" I questioned. Alarm bells went off in my head as I recalled the shadow in her room. Did it have anything to do with _him_?

Jamie shrugged in response. "She never really elaborated on that. Come to think of it, she never really explained much about herself at all. I'm telling you what little I can infer from our conversation. Hey, you don't think-?"

"Want to get back to our snowball fight?" I interrupted, not willing to venture into a conversation about Pitch just yet. If North thought it was nothing, maybe it really was.

"Jack!" he whined, and his protest was rewarded by me with a snowball in the face. He only sputtered and laughed, of course, deciding to leave the discussion at that for now. The fun picked back up for an hour or so, during which we sledded down the street and spent a short moment fixing up Darian's snowman, which was already falling apart. Before too long, though, all of our friends were called back home for lunch by their parents and were gone after a few apologetic goodbyes and promises to come back later. When the lot had emptied save for me and Jamie, he gathered up his sled, and we both departed for his house.

I came in through the front door with Jamie, knowing that nobody would really mind. As we entered, the most mouth-watering scent washed over us, and we followed it to its source: the kitchen. Two large trays of sugar cookies sat out on the counter, tempting enough to make me regret not accepting North's offer. Jamie's mother was icing one batch, keeping her back turned to the other. Jamie smile mischievously and snuck over to the already frosted pan, but had only just reached up to snatch a cookie when his mother whirled around and slapped him lightly on the wrist. She wagged a scolding finger at him while he nursed nothing but his twelve-year-old pride. "It's almost lunchtime. Go wash up," she ordered.

Jamie heaved an exaggerated sigh, and we left the kitchen. The thought crossed my mind that I could grab us cookies, and she would never even notice, but I refrained from doing so, knowing that it would only get Jamie into trouble. He went into his room, tossing his extra layers haphazardly on the floor. I noticed that someone had closed the windows before we had come back, but Jamie still noticed the puddle left on the floor from melted snow and raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged and smiled before a chorus of squeals and giggles caught my attention. While Jamie struggled with his boots, I wandered down the hall to Sophie's room.

I peered through her partially opened door, and my jaw dropped the floor at what I saw. "Jamie!" I whispered, careful not to alert the one occupant of the room who could at any moment become aware of my presence. I didn't want to disrupt this confusing scene. Jamie tip-toed to my side after I motioned for him to be quiet. His eyes widened when he took in the sight.

Sophie's room was painted a fluorescent princess pink with a canopy bed on one end of the room and a giant, lavishly decorated doll-house on the other. Next to it was a tiny table decked with an elaborate mock tea-set. Sophie sat at the table, face smeared with frosting and wearing a tutu, fairy wings, and tiara. That was nothing out of the ordinary. What puzzled both of us was her tea-party guest, who also wore a frilly costume and pretended to drink tea from a doll-sized cup while sitting at a table that didn't even reach her knees, however petite she was for her age. The sight was so ridiculous that I nearly laughed, but I was too shocked by it to make a sound. I really wished I had a camera.

Jamie and I backed away from the door and leaned against the wall in disbelief. "Darian?" we both wondered quietly out loud. As much as Jamie had vouched for her, it seemed that even he hadn't expected her to have such a childish side. A side that genuinely laughed and had a grin that reached her sparkling blue eyes. As for me, I was dumbfounded, not knowing how she was before. To me, she seemed like a totally different person from the stick-in-the-mud outside.

"Okay, maybe she has a chance," I told Jamie, nodding thoughtfully while processing this new information.

"Let's try again tonight."

"Let's."

**Darian**

The day went by just about uneventfully, though I did notice Jamie silently staring at me during meals. Had my leaving disrupted his fun that badly? The thought had caused me to shrink back in my chair and blush apologetically, at which point Jamie appeared to remember how rude it was to stare and returned to chewing his meatloaf while I pushed half-eaten food around my plate.

A long sweatshirt and shorts served as my pajamas for the evening, and after brushing my teeth and hair (it was excessively wavy after being in that braid for so long), I returned to my room for the first time that day, rushing to the lamp to rid it of any darkness. I continued my usual nighttime routine by wandering over to the window and opening the curtains to look out at all of the freshly falling snow. The clouds mostly covered the moon that night, but a sliver of its cold light escaped and seemed to shine directly on my window.

I was about to close the curtains back when I noticed the latch on the window. It was an ordinary latch, nothing special about it, but I distinctly remembered Jamie making it a point to mention Jack Frost before heading off to bead. I carelessly flicked it to the unlocked position. Why the heck not? I was on the second floor, and any ivy that intruders could have climbed up had long ago withered and died. Even if I didn't believe in his imaginary friend, what was the worst that could happen?

I said my nightly prayers and climbed into bed, but I didn't close my eyes. As always, I wasn't going to sleep anytime soon, but I didn't want to keep Jamie up again, so I restricted myself to the limits of my own room. There were a few old books inside of the nightstand that the lamp stood on, and I dug one of them out to read. After blowing the dust off of the worn cover, I saw that I had selected _Peter Pan_. I shrugged and opened it. I remembered reading Lewis Carroll's _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ books once, but I didn't think that I had actually read this one before.

Later that night, I had made it halfway through the story when a loud bang jolted me out of the book's world. I slammed the book shut angrily when I saw that a strong gust of wind had blown my window open, and flurries of snow were flying in and filling the room. Setting the book gently aside, I slipped out from under the covers, shivering as the snowflakes brushed against my mostly bare legs. I rolled my sore neck around after leaning against the headboard for so long - my pillows still remained in their makeshift fort at the foot of the bed - before moving to shut the window.

After batting away the wildly flapping curtains and fighting the wind, I managed to close and lock it. I scoffed then at Jamie's insistence that his imaginary friend was real. These windows had to be weak or something for the wind to blow them open like that once the latch was moved, and with the snow flying about like it had, there really was no wonder that he believed in his friend Jack Frost. I should have locked his window earlier when I had the chance. There really was no Jack Frost. I found myself frowning at that. Maybe a small, foolish, childish part of me had wanted to believe in that magic.

I drew the curtains and turned around, shivering again. Flakes still drifted about in my room, and despite my irritation at the whole event, I endeavored to catch one on my tongue. I succeeded after a minute or two, and upon opening my eyes, I saw that not only had the flakes not landed, they had increased in number, originating from some unknown point above me. "Okay, that's a little strange," I remarked as it continued snowing within my room, just as Jamie had predicted. My hair had turned white with the powder, and I was absolutely freezing, but my awe and wonder at the sight seemed to take the edge off.

A flake landed on my nose, and I laughed. It wasn't even snowing this hard outside! Had Jamie really been right? Jack Frost was real? "Jack Frost!" I exclaimed breathlessly, spinning and dancing around in the flurry. "It's Jack Frost!" It was too amazing for me to believe, but somehow, I did. I kept twirling until I came to a sudden, dizzy stop in the corner. A pair of icy blue eyes met mine, so alike my own in every shade that for a moment, my brain was confused by it all, and I could have sworn that I must have been looking in a mirror. What other explanation was there? That notion vanished as I blinked and saw that they were attached to the pale face of a boy that I didn't know.

It didn't register at first that this boy with snowy hair matched Jamie's description of Jack to a T, staff, blue hoodie and everything. All that really registered in that moment was that there was a strange boy in my room that I didn't know, so I reacted exactly like my dad had taught me to in this kind of situation.

I screamed and punched him in the face.

**(I know. It's been forever since I last updated. In my defense, I was busy at Junior Theatre Festival [JTF] and came back from that with a sinus infection. Hopefully, this chapter makes up for the lateness. It's longer than all of the others with a whole lot of Jack! Please review while I go and mope over medicine and make-up work for school!)**


	5. Chapter 5: Meet Mr White Christmas

**Darian**

Thank goodness that I was not one to be fond of 'cussing.' I found swears to be pointless and vulgar, so instead of shouting a stream of curses, I only managed an incoherent babble of whatever random syllables came to mind, which was what Jamie was unfortunate enough to have to listen to as he came rushing into my room, alerted by my earlier scream of surprise. It was at least better than an earful of expletives.

I had backed away from my intruder, leaning against the foot of the bed and my fort of pillows as I nursed my right hand. I had been told several times that punching people could hurt, but I had never done such a thing before, so the unpleasant sensation came as a bit of a shock to me. As I cradled my reddening fingers, though, I did get some satisfaction out of the fact that the stranger was not in any better of a position than I was, pressing I white hand to his face where I had struck him while also muttering incomprehensibly.

Jamie was absolutely flabbergasted (for lack of a better word to describe his nearly comical surprised expression). "What did you do to Jack?" he yelled, eyes wide and worried while he tried to understand the scene in front of him.

My breath caught in my throat, and I looked up from my hand to the intruder, who had silenced and was giving me a very annoyed glare. I glanced over to Jamie, then to the intruder, back to Jamie, and finally let my eyes rest on Jack before the realization completely dawned on me. I pointed at Jack just to be absolutely sure about what he had meant, Jamie nodded, and my mouth dropped as I felt I should say something then, anything, but I couldn't seem to find the right words. While fumbling for speech, only an embarrassing squeak left my mouth, and my hand flew up to cover for it. That ended up being a mistake for all of the pain that the action caused me, and slowly, I lowered it back into the care of the other hand, not taking my eyes off of Jack Frost the entire time.

"Oh," was all I managed to say.

_Oh? How literate of you Darian_, I mentally scolded myself for my lack of eloquence, but what in heaven was I supposed to say in the presence of _the _Jack Frost, especially when I had just punched him in the face?

"So, you believe now? You can see him?" Jamie asked just to be sure. I nodded just as Jack spoke for the first time.

"I almost wish that she didn't. I would have rather not felt that punch. Good arm, by the way," he teased, gingerly tapping the side of his face that I noticed hadn't bruised in the slightest for whatever reason. Against his absurdly pale skin, it would have shown up brilliantly. I grimaced at that, rubbing my surely bruised knuckles while Jamie recommenced freaking out.

"You punched Jack in the face?" he exclaimed incredulously.

I finally found enough voice to try and defend myself. "He snuck up behind me! I didn't know!"

"I'm fine, Jamie, and I did not sneak up on you! You overreacted!" Jack retorted, staring me straight in the eyes. It unnerved me slightly, but I still held my ground, only a little unsteady.

"How was I supposed to react? I mean, a strange guy suddenly appearing in my bedroom? It's completely natural to freak out!"

"But you said my name! You knew that I was here! You should have expected to see me by then! Didn't Jamie explain all of this to you?"

"Yeah, but I didn't think that you would actually be inside my room!" I almost wanted to punch him again, or at least, pretend to hit him just to see if he would flinch away. As it was, he stood uncomfortably close after shouting at me, and it really bothered me in this situation how much taller he was than me. He looked about ready to yell something back, but Jamie finally stepped in between us to break up the fight.

"You guys are going to wake the whole house!" he warned. I nearly laughed, recalling my words from the previous night, but as he spoke, almost on cue, Sophie came tottering in, rubbing her tired eyes and yawning.

"Why are you yelling at Jack?" she wondered, her voice slurring from sleepiness. A hot blush crawled over my face as I realized that Jamie was right and that I was acting a bit ridiculous. I tore my gaze away from Jack sheepishly, partly to hide my embarrassment in this awkward situation, and walked over to where Sophie stood.

"It's nothing that you should worry about," I assured her, taking her by the hand and leading her just across the hallway and back into her room. She went without a fuss, which seemed very odd with how bubbly that she usually was, but I chalked that up to her exhaustion. I helped her back into bed, and after one last yawn, the already half-asleep child was out like a light and silently dreaming. Her room became deathly still, which led me to notice the uncomfortable darkness of my surroundings. On my way out, I flicked on her nightlight, making sure to leave it on a fifteen-minute timer.

Just before I closed the door behind me, though, a dull _thud _caused me to turn around in surprise. Sophie had rolled out of bed, dragging her sheets and a few stuffed animals down with her. I considered maybe tucking her back in, but she already looked so peaceful that I simply decided to leave her like that. Smiling with amusement, I let the door click shut before heading back to my own room, where Jamie and Jack had been patiently waiting for me to get back. Jack had noticeably cooled down - ha ha - and was somehow balancing on top of his staff. I performed a rather spectacular double-take at the sight but managed not to freak out too much as I walked right up to him. "So, you really are real?" I breathed, blinking several times to make sure that this wasn't a hallucination or a dream.

Ha! This would be normal for one of my dreams.

"Jackson Overland Frost, the one and only!" he greeted cheerfully with an affirming nod. "But just call me Jack. Please." I made a mental note not to do so at a later date just to annoy him after the previous events of the night. Speaking of...

"I owe you an apology," I admitted shyly, blushing again and finding it harder to look him straight in the eyes. There really was something strange about them, their icy blue color too clear and too pure. It almost didn't seem natural, but what was natural when talking to a Winter spirit? "I'm, uh, sorry for punching you in the face. That was a little uncalled for."

"You think?" he huffed, earning him a sharp elbow from Jamie and a warning glare from me. He certainly wasn't making things any easier for me. He hopped off of his staff and appeared to shrug off any remains of bitterness. "I'll be fine." With that, he smiled, showing teeth as white as the snow outside. "How's your hand?"

"No, you're not fine," I insisted, allowing worry to seep into my tone as I tried to get a closer look at his face. Jack backed away slightly.

"Excuse me?"

"I just punched you in the face, and you're asking me if I'm okay? There's got to be something wrong with you." I searched and searched for any discoloration along his cheek but could find nothing, and I only succeeded in slightly weirding him out by my staring. He laughed suddenly, causing me to blush and shrink back in surprise.

"No, really. I'm fine. Let me see your hand." Before I could protest, he tore my right hand away from me, causing me to wince in discomfort and frown at the invasion of my personal space. Sure, I had just been staring at his (admittedly handsome) face not five seconds ago, but I hadn't come to close. I hadn't touched him. I felt extremely awkward as he took my hand and turned it over in his, observing the bruise spreading along my fingers.

"Ow," I hissed as he pressed against it a little too hard, wanting nothing more to rip my hand back and end the awkwardness, but at the same time, I didn't. His skin felt as cold as ice and was strangely soothing against my sore, swollen hand. I held my tongue from then on, allowing his coldness to numb the pain.

Finally, he looked back up at me and Jamie, nodding as if contemplating something. "So, this is what happens when you hit an immortal? I've always wondered."

"You would," said Jamie with a noticeable eye-roll.

I snatched my hand back, Jack releasing it without any fuss. Immortal? That actually explained a lot about his lack of injury and my, well, lack of a lack of injury, but it left me with quite a few more questions than answers. "Again, I'm really sorry about that."

"Again, I'm really fine," he repeated, sounding a bit annoyed if anything at the apology now. He wasn't one to be fussed over, apparently. I offered a shy smile, a tacit apology for bothering him with my apology. I moved to sit cross-legged on my bed, cradling my poor hand with its opposite once again and shivering slightly when I felt how cold my fingers had become after his touch, but the pain had greatly subsided since then, so I decided that I didn't mind too much. An awkward silence fell inside the room as no one really knew what to say next or how to move on from here, and after a moment or two, I had to tuck my legs up under my sweatshirt when the temperature inside only seemed to plummet. I could see mine and Jamie's breath.

"So!" Jamie finally said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them against each other for warmth. The sound was so sudden and so loud that I flinched. "You can see Jack now. Any questions?" He rocked back and forth on his heels, his gaze darting between me and Jack anxiously, obviously uncomfortable with the lack of conversation. This meeting hadn't gone exactly as it planned, it seemed.

"A lot, actually," I admitted quietly.

"About what?"

"Everything. I just don't know where to start."

"The beginning's usually an excellent starting point," Jack recommended half-sarcastically. He really wasn't much help, was he?

Jamie only grinned obliviously at his comment. "Sure! We can tell her the whole story!"

"Don't you guys need to sleep?" Jack wondered.

"I couldn't possibly sleep now! I'm too excited that she can see you!" Jamie insisted, working to hide a yawn only a second after. Jack turned his gaze upon me, and I shrugged.

"I don't really sleep, so I've got all night." Jack cocked his head to the side and stared at me curiously when I said that, and a look flashed across his face, almost like a grimace, but it was gone before I could really grasp what it meant. I looked down at my feet self-consciously, wondering what on earth was so interesting about what I had said. Sleep disorders weren't so uncommon, were they?

Jamie noticed Jack's odd expression, too, watching him with a strange sort of understanding in his chocolate eyes that left me feeling a little put out. This awkward moment passed as quickly as it had popped up, and soon, Jamie was hopping onto my bed to sit next to me, grinning from ear to ear. Jack opted to remain standing, casually leaning on his wooden staff. He motioned for Jamie to begin, and Jamie obliged very animatedly, moving his arms about as if to draw the scenes to life in the air. I couldn't help but smile, feeling a weird sort of nostalgia while watching him.

"Like I was telling you before," Jamie began. "There are four Guardians of Childhood."

"Five," Jack corrected.

"Oh, right. "There's Santa Claus, who is way tougher than you would think with two swords and an awesome sleigh, the Tooth Fairy, who is prettier than you could ever imagine, the Easter Bunny, who is over six feet tall and has these cool boomerang things, the Sandman, who is just plain awesome, and Jack here makes five." Jack gave a small wave when Jamie said his name. Their job is to protect the wonder, hopes, and dreams in all of the children around the world, whether they believe or not."

I raised my hand halfway, tentative and shy, the same way that I normally would during school. Jamie stopped and waited patiently for my question. "Okay, so I get the whole 'believing is seeing' concept now, and I can understand how because of that, the Guardians can be widely considered myth. My question is: Are all of the mythical creatures we know of real, or is it just the Guardians?"

"Most are real," Jack replied. "The Guardians are just the select few chosen by the Man in the Moon to protect children." We collectively turned to look out my window when he said that, but I had drawn my curtains earlier, and it was a cloudy night, anyway. I nodded, processing all of this new information while at the same time, wondering how I could act so calm externally when on the inside, my mind was going wild, fighting against Jack's and Jamie's tale. Logic told me that reindeer could not fly, bunnies could not paint eggs, and that fairies simply did not exist. I decided to set aside logic for the moment, though, remembering how Jack had just made it snow inside, something also deemed impossible by logic.

I was quickly learning through this unexpected meeting that believing and seeing were directly related. If I thought about it a little (but not too much because then things just got confusing), it actually made a little sense. If you see something that challenges your beliefs, you might change to believe something else, and then, you would see that something in a different way. Things like this happened all the time with new scientific discoveries. This concept mostly seemed to apply to my present situation, whether or not what I was now starting to believe actually made sense or not.

Jeezum crow, I was way overthinking this.

"One more thing: what exactly are the Guardians protecting kids from?" I asked, attempting to focus on the story and not on my own rambling thoughts.

"I was getting to that," Jamie told me. "A few years ago, Pitch Black had gathered enough Nightmares for an army, and he fought against the Guardians and tried to eliminate any belief in them, which drains them of their powers."

"Pitch Black?" I couldn't ever recall hearing about him in any myths or fairy-tales that I had read, but I couldn't help but frown as I said his name, as if it left a bitter taste behind. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that I didn't like how it sounded, how it suggested darkness and malevolence.

"Oh, sorry. That's the bogeyman," Jamie explained. Oh, okay. The bogeyman and Nightmares. I guess that made sense.

Wait, what?

I must have reacted in some way to this news because Jack was watching me intently again. I could deal with my night terrors; they weren't real, nothing but bad dreams, but becoming a spectacle was not something that I was particularly fond of. The bogeyman's existence was shocking but not my present problem. I set my expression to a smiling mask and motioned for Jamie to continue, keeping a nervous eye on Jack until he finally looked away. Jamie chose to ignore Jack this time and eagerly continued his tale.

"Anyway, the Man in the Moon thought that the Guardians would need help, so he chose Jack to be the next Guardian."

"Which I was less than enthusiastic about," Jack added.

"Why is that?" I wondered.

"Well, they're always, _always_ working. It's not really my style. Hard work and deadlines? No thank you. Snowballs and fun times: now, that's more me."

Snow Miser's song inexplicably popped into my head at that moment, and it was all that I could do to purse my lips and not sing it out loud. Talk about an ear worm! Jamie cleared his throat and started up the story. Again.

"Pitch nearly beat the Guardians. He captured all of the tooth fairies and broke all of the Easter eggs."

"Wait, there's more than one Tooth Fairy?" I asked incredulously.

"Of course," Jack answered. "You can't really expect Tooth to go and collect hundreds of teeth every night by herself. She has thousands of little helpers. They won't ever give me a break."

"Why?"

"Apparently, I have teeth that - and I quote - 'sparkle like the freshly fallen snow.'" Rolling his eyes, Jack gave me a ridiculously over-exaggerated grin to make his point, and I couldn't help but chuckle at his silly face.

"Please save all further questions until the end. Thank you," said Jamie in an overly polite tone, obviously a little annoyed at our constant interruptions, but I could see how he also smiled at Jack's silliness. It was hard not to, and Jack's mood only seemed to brighten more at that fact, as if the Winter spirit thrived on making others laugh. Whatever had bothered him about me before seemed suddenly and completely forgotten, and I nearly sighed with relief at that.

Jamie finally finished the story. "I was the last believer in the entire world. Can you believe it?" I could. "But I was beginning to have my doubts after all that Pitch had done, so Jack found me and made me believe all over again. I was the first to ever see Jack, you know!" Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Jack's expression softening, and coupled with Jamie's ecstatic grin, I concluded that the day was of great importance to the both of them.

"In the end, we got all of my friends to believe, which gave the Guardians the strength to fight back, and we even brought the Sandman back to life!"

"He died?" My jaw dropped a little, and my eyes went wide. Hadn't Jack said earlier that Guardians were immortal?

"Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot to mention that. Pitch killed him to get rid of all of the good dreams in the world," Jamie explained.

"That's a pretty big detail to forget to mention," I scolded. Jack appeared to be nodding along with me, which made me feel slightly more justified and confidant in my complaint. Dying was not something that I was inclined to treat lightly.

"Sorry," Jamie muttered. "He's fine now, though, and he brought back all of the good dreams, which made enough people believe to allow the tooth fairies to fly again, and they brought back memories to children to remind them of what's important, and eventually, the Guardians' power was completely restored, Pitch lost, and Jack officially became a Guardian. The end. Any questions now?"

I chose to raise my hand again instead of blurting anything out. Both Jack and Jamie were amused. "Yes, Miss Bennett?" Jamie chuckled.

"What do the fairies have to do with memories?"

"Excellent question, Miss," Jack replied, joining in on the act. "A child's baby teeth holds all of their most precious memories through some magic that no one can ever hope to understand." He laughed. "Pretty weird, right?"

I nodded, definitely weirded out by this information, but what person in their right mind wouldn't be? "A little bit, yes. Also what happened to Pitch?" I asked this question hesitantly, not quite sure that I really wanted to know. The thought that the bogeyman was real was enough to send shivers down my spine, but after hearing what he was capable of and how he almost took over the world, I was a little more than disturbed. I didn't like it. Not one bit.

Jack was looking at me funny again. Would he just stop that? "I don't know exactly. He lost a lot of power, and the Nightmares eventually turned on him. I haven't really seen him since Tooth punched out one of his teeth. Heh. We - the Guardians and I - try to keep an eye out for him, though." His tone seemed less than reassuring, somehow, and he said this with a noticeable grimace that didn't look like it belonged on his face.

Another awkward silence descended upon the room, thick and seemingly tangible enough to be cut through with a knife. Jack appeared to be thinking about something, and Jamie must have been thinking the same thing because they shared many knowing glances when they must have thought that I wasn't looking, leaving me feeling uncomfortably out of the loop. "Well," I began, my voice sounding almost too loud after the silence that still rang in our ears. "It was definitely nice to meet you, Jack."

"Likewise."

"But I'm sure that Jamie needs to get to bed, and-"

"Hey! I'm not tired!" he protested. I ignored this and continued.

"-I would love to be left alone to sleep." More like stare at a wall and rethink _everything_.

"That's a lie." Jamie rolled his eyes at my obvious fib but got up and started out the door, nevertheless. Jack followed after him, pausing only when they reached the doorway.

"As fun as slumber parties are, you really shouldn't be in my room this late. Goodnight. Sleep tight."

"Don't let the bogeyman bite?" Jack teased. I was not amused.

"Right, and again, I'm really, really sorry about hitting you, Jack. Are you sure you're completely alright?" I looked over his face once more, searching for any bumps and bruises that I might have missed before.

"Seriously, I'm fine," he groaned, pointedly staring at my noticeably bruised hand, trying to draw my attention to anything else but him. He really didn't like to be fussed over, did he? Or at least, he wasn't used to it. His staring worked, and I wondered if he had figured out enough about me in our visit to know what bothered me, as well. I cradled my sore hand and smiled apologetically.

"Sorry," I mumbled before shyly closing the door. I stayed by it and listened, only relaxing when I heard one set of footprints retreat down the hallway. Odd. Listening further, I heard nothing else, so I figured that they both must have left. When I thought about it, I hadn't actually seen Jack walk the entire night. When he had exited my room just a minute ago, he had seemed to glide. At this point, though, I wasn't all that surprised at the revelation that he could fly.

I pushed my thick hair out of my face and jumped back into bed, wincing as something hard poked my back. Fishing the offending object out from under me, I rolled my eyes when I saw that it was the _Peter Pan_ book that I had been reading only an hour or so ago. I slipped it back into its place in the nightstand, deciding that I'd had my fill of fairies and flying boys for one night. After that, I just sort of stared at the ceiling for an indeterminable amount of time. After all that I had learned in such a short time, I needed a while to think.

I needed a good, long shower.

I got out of bed and gathered all of my things, welcoming the excuse to escape my room despite the late hour. The shadows in the corners suddenly seemed more ominous now that I knew what could be lurking in them. Ignorance truly was bliss. I thought that I might have been better off being able to tell myself that there was nothing there, that I was being silly and childish, but I couldn't do that anymore. I couldn't say that the bogeyman wasn't real. I rushed out of my room a little faster than usual that night.

As I passed Jamie's room, I thought that I heard my name, muffled as it was through his closed door, and I paused to listen a minute. Jamie and Jack were talking. I could tell that much. Why would they be talking about me? Was I just being paranoid? I forced myself to continue on towards the bathroom, realizing that they must have been able to hear me walking down the hallway and that they probably noticed how I had stopped outside the door to eavesdrop. I closed the bathroom door behind me, only hoping that they really hadn't noticed my rudeness.

As usual, I adjusted the shower temperature, shed my clothes, and stepped into the warm, relaxing rain and thought. As usual, I thought about my nightmares, but I thought about them in a different way. Instead of working through them, I pondered how the realization of the bogeyman's existence effected how I thought of them. Could nightmares occur on their own, or did he have to create all of them? If so, did he just enjoy torturing me for whatever sadistic reason? I decided that I was over-thinking this. Lots of people had trouble sleeping.

Maybe I should ask Jack to be sure...

No. Maybe it was best that I didn't know.

Speaking of Jack, he was certainly an interesting character. I felt that I must have been completely blind before to never have noticed him. He wasn't exactly a forgettable face with his stark white hair and his too blue eyes.

And I had punched him in that pretty, little face of his. How stupid could I get? He probably thought that I was crazy or something. Jamie, too. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! I leaned my head against the tiled wall of the shower, frowning. I had punched the spirit of Winter in the face.

Huh. How many people could say that?

I observed my hand in the bright bathroom lighting. A dark bruise had spread across most of my knuckles and fingers, and I tried to figure out how I would hide that from the adults in the morning. It was not going to be easy, but it would be even harder to explain, assuming that none of them were believers. Just then, I felt a stinging in my nose, almost as if I had gotten water up it, but it actually led to a sneeze. People told me that I sneezed adorably, that it was a tiny little squeak that sounded very much like a kitten, but in the acoustics of the bathroom, it may as well have been a firecracker going off for all of the sound that echoed back to me.

I gagged at the mess it had made and was never so glad to be in a shower in my life. I finished all shower related activities and finally got out, throwing the sweatshirt and shorts back on because it was still too early to get dressed. I forced myself not to stop at Jamie's door and kept heading to mine. Besides, his room appeared to have fallen completely silent, and I imagined that he had fallen asleep despite his protests. I hopped into bed immediately, shifting closer to the lamp on the nightstand.

The shadows were still there, staring back at me, and I could think of nothing to distract myself from them. I didn't want to read anymore, and I had watched enough Rankin/Bass for the moment. Finally, I simply closed my eyes, not wanting to even look at my half-lit room anymore, and I fell into a fitful sleep at some point until long after the sun came up. A resounding _thud_ shook my window-pane and jolted me out of another incoherent nightmare.

I warily dragged myself out of bed and threw open the drapes to be greeted with morning sunshine and a hovering Jamie nursing a bump on his forehead. Jack held onto the back of his jacket as he flew and waved at me with his free hand. I only frowned, not amused at the wake-up call that I hadn't ordered. "You locked your window," Jamie's muffled voice complained. I only nodded and shut the curtains once again.

**(I really have no excuse for how late this chapter is. Laziness, I guess. Sorry! This chapter also ended up being longer than I thought it would be. Darian thinks too much. BTW, I have drawn a picture of Darian for anyone who's interested. I have posted it on my Deviantart account, which has the same username if you ever want to look me up. Well, I'm going to go work on the next chapter, which I promise will be a heck of a lot more exciting than this one! Reviews, please!)**


	6. Chapter 6: A Step In The Right Direction

**Darian**

I was wide awake within moments. My sleep had been troubled and light, as always. I threw on the next outfit in the dresser, a simple, pale blue top and a faded pair of jeans. I opened my door to head to the bathroom to take care of my hair and nearly had a heart attack when I almost walked straight into Jamie and Jack. The two of them had apparently been waiting outside my door after their failed break-in attempt, or whatever it was supposed to have been. "Why did you lock your window?" Jamie asked. "You know that Jack is real now."

"Well, for one thing, I don't believe I ordered a wake-up call, and for other reasons that I shouldn't have to explain, I refuse to give any guy complete and total access to my bedroom," I grumbled, trying to force back my knotted mass of hair out of my face. Geez, I was truly awful in the mornings, ill-tempered with a nasty bed-head.

"What?" said Jamie with an inquisitive tilt of his head.

"I told you that I'm not going to explain."

"Teenage girl stuff," Jack told him.

Jamie gave a long, drawn out "oh" coupled with a look of realization. "Right. Sorry," he apologized with a sheepish smile. "I'm going to go get breakfast. See you outside, Jack!" Jamie scurried off down the hallway with a wave, and I watched him go until I heard his footsteps reach the bottom of the stairs.

"Thanks," I mumbled to Jack.

"Don't mention it. Not a morning person, huh?"

"I guess not."

"Rough night? Not to pry or anything, but you look awful." He was doing it again. He was looking at me weirdly with those weird eyes of his again. Not to mention that he was looking at me weirdly while I apparently looked "awful." Did he really have to point that out? Blushing from his observation of my appearance, I simply nodded and hurried faster than usual to the bathroom, nearly slamming the door shut behind me.

Looking myself over in the mirror, I saw that he wasn't wrong. My hair was a rats' nest after all of the tossing and turning that I must have done during the night, and the dark rings beneath my eyes only seemed to have grown more prominent. I could swear that I looked worse when I did sleep compared to when I didn't. At least my headache hadn't started up just yet.

Before fighting with my hair, I took a minute to splash some water over my face, not because I wasn't awake yet, but because my face felt unnaturally hot, and the cold water provided me with momentary relief. I patted it dry with a hand towel from the rack, and the heat slowly came back, burning my cheeks and forehead. I pressed my fingers, still cold from the water, against my face and felt that it was also hot to the touch. A fever? I felt awful, but I couldn't really be coming down with something, could I? What rotten timing this was!

_Calm down_, I told myself mentally. Maybe it was nothing, just another symptom of lack of sleep. The last thing I needed was to be sick around Christmastime, and I could speak from experience. There were presents to buy, carols to sing, and precious family time to enjoy. Being sick tended to throw a wrench in all plans (think back to the whole car sickness incident for proof), and that would only make me a bother to everyone.

I ran through my unruly hair roughly with my hairbrush, forcing it back into straight perfection and restricting it with one of the many black hair-bands that I had packed. After struggling to gather it into a ponytail for several minutes, I double-checked it in the mirror - my usual morning routine - and noticed a few fly-aways, but too tired to restart the entire arduous process, I simply shoved the escapees back out of my face and chose to ignore them for now. I splashed my face once more, trying again to cool it down, before I applied my daily makeup - possibly using a bit more concealer than usual to hide the unsightly bags underneath my eyes, which I hated. I actually hated makeup in general, but it seemed to be a necessary evil. You just couldn't go out without looking your best these days.

It was roughly half an hour before I emerged from the bathroom. Maybe my hair had taken even longer than I had originally thought. Maybe I got lost in my own thoughts again. I didn't really know. My head felt fuzzy and had started to hurt again. All I knew was that by the time I finally opened the door, Sophie was skipping past, fully dressed and following the smell of fresh bacon down the stairs, which informed me of how long I really must of taken in there. Even in my short time in Burgess, I had learned how impossible it was to get Sophie into actual clothes. Even worse was getting her to brush her hair, but I never wanted to think of that tantrum of epic proportions ever again.

My first instinct was to follow her (and my growling stomach) to breakfast, but I first glanced warily down the hallway, relaxing only when I was completely sure that Jack had left. He had probably left a very long time ago, but still, I found myself walking down the hall to double-check my room to be absolutely, completely sure. How could I know that he hadn't unlocked my window in my absence? He'd probably think it to be a lovely prank to barge in unexpectedly tomorrow morning.

My doubts about his character were soon - but not completely - erased when I passed by Jamie's room and felt a frigid blast of air coming from it, similar to my experience yesterday, and like yesterday, I found the window left wide open. I assumed that this must be Jack's typical mode of exit, and I moved to shut it. Another breeze washed over me, though, and I paused, feeling it caress and cool my face. It felt wonderful, and for a moment, I felt a little less fuzzy, and the burn faded slightly. A minute later, I caught myself shivering in the cold. I blinked, shook my head, and finally shut the window, having half a mind to lock this one as well to punish Jack for his poor manners. I mean, leaving the door - ah, window - wide open behind him? Was he raised in a barn?

What a lovely prank it would be, too! I gave a half-hearted chuckle as I imagined his and Jamie's faces as Jack collided with the glass, but in the end, I never touched the latch and headed down to breakfast, pausing only to admire what must have been Jamie's artwork hanging on the wall. It was actually pretty good, and I smiled as I lightly traced the pencil strokes, and I was still smiling as I walked down the stairs.

The bacon had smelled amazing at first, but shortly after sitting down, the head and fuzziness seemed to catch back up with me, and my nose became unbearably stuffy. I found myself eating even less than usual, the discomfort ruining my appetite. At least, there was always faithful Abby, who eagerly waited underneath the table for me to sneak her a few strips so that I wouldn't be wasting anything. She was a lifesaver in this situation. My cat would never do anything like this at home.

I politely excused myself from the table and went over to the couch to rest for a bit. I rubbed my forehead and sighed, growing increasingly sure every uncomfortable second that I must be coming down with something. Jamie and Sophie ran past me after a while and started grabbing their coats off of the rack by the door. "Do you wanna come sledding with us, Darian?" Jamie asked, poking an arm through his coat sleeve. "It'll be a lot more fun now that you can see Jack."

I gave him a weak smile. "No, thanks. I think I should stay inside today," I explained. The freezing temperatures outside probably wouldn't be the best thing for what I assumed was a small cold that I had caught.

"Oh, okay," he sighed dejectedly, making me feel horrible and guilty inside. All he really wanted was for me to be friends with Jack. I bit my lip, conflicted over whether or not I should reconsider my choice.

My mind was made up for me, though, as soon as Jamie opened the door to leave, and once again, a cool breeze washed over me, bringing with it a moment of clarity. I couldn't resist. "Wait, Jamie," I called out to him, and he and Sophie stopped in the doorway and turned to face me. "Maybe I might come out for just a little bit. Give me a second to grab my coat."

The smile that lit up his face assured me that I had made the right decision. "Okay! I'll go get you a sled and meet you outside!" he said excitedly, rushing out the door with both Sophie and Abby on his heels. When I dragged myself to my feet, I had to move to close the door to keep out the cold, a small detail that Jamie had forgotten on his way out. Although I regretted shutting out the refreshing air, I knew that it would quickly become a bother to the adults if I didn't.

I took my time pulling on my coat and boots, allowing my foggy mind to catch up with each motion. It was almost painful to pile on all of the warm clothes with how hot I already felt. I was sweating by the time I approached the front door again, throwing it open eagerly to breathe in the chilly air outside, feeling it soothe my burning cheeks and forehead. I patted down my hat to make sure It was secure in the brisk wind, which had the unfortunate effect of loosening my ponytail, and headed outside.

Before I could even close the door behind me, I became away of several other voices besides Jamie's, Sophie's, and Jack's and realized that Jamie's other friends must have come over to sled with us. Curious and not wanting to interrupt, I held off on closing the door and paused to listen while they still hadn't noticed me.

"So, how about a course running from the front of Jamie's house to the pond, as always," Jack was saying.

"Sounds great!" cheered one or both of the twins. It was hard to tell.

"I'll go get started on that," said Jack.

"We just have to wait until Darian gets here to start," Jamie told his friends. To my utter dismay, this news was received with a chorus of whines and groans. "What?"

"She's just no fun to hang out with," Cupcake explained. "She doesn't really talk to us, and it's really weird when we have to talk to Jack and she can't see him."

I frowned and bit my lip unhappily. _Great_. Just _great_. I was officially as unpopular here in Burgess as I was back in Georgia (a long story that I refused to share), and it really was all my fault. My stupidity extended far past the events of last night, obviously.

"Wait-" both Jamie and Jack began at once, but I decided to shut the door right at that moment to spare them the explanation, probably a little more forcefully than I should have, judging from the surprised shouts I heard afterward. I stepped off the porch and approached them on the snowy lawn. I was greeted with a dull unison "hi, Darian" before the kids all turned their attention back to Jack, forming a circle with him in the center, chatting eagerly about sledding - how exciting could sledding really be?

I was left out of the aforementioned circle, and I hung around the edge of it awkwardly until Jamie - bless him! - stepped out to join me and to hand me one of the two sleds that he had been holding. I reached out with my right hand to grab it, and stretching out my fingers to grip the edge firmly, I realized too late that this move was a mistake. I winced as Jamie let go, leaving the fully weight of the sled to rest in my hand, which caused me to remember the horrible bruise that I had obtained last night. I had completely forgotten about it while worrying about being sick or being disliked.

"Sorry," Jamie said.

"I'm fine," I assured him through gritted teeth, shifting the sled from one hand to the other. Jamie didn't appear to believe me at first, so I smiled wide and shook my hand, trying not to let on how hurt I really felt.

None of Jamie's friends had moved from the clump or noticed us, so in an attempt to get their attention, Jamie cleared his throat loudly. Nothing. "Um, guys?"

There still wasn't a real response from them, but Jack had seen us this entire time and decided to help out in his own way. He grinned and gave me an exaggerated wave that caught me a little off-guard with how over the top it was. "Hi, Jack," I said slowly, wondering what on earth he was doing. I caught on not even a second later.

There was a collective gasp as the circle opened up and turned to me. Jack had just proved that I really did believe now. I tilted my head downwards shyly, suddenly put on the spot. "Jack, she sees you!" Pippa squealed.

"You _can_ see him, right?" Cupcake inquired, just to be sure.

"Yeah," I answered quietly, nodding.

Jack laughed. "I'll say! She could see me well enough to punch me in the face!"

"You did what?" all except Jamie shouted in unison. They were scarily good at that.

"Yeah," I repeated. A hotness spread over my face that had nothing to do with fever, and I knew that I must be blushing from embarrassment. Did he have to bring that up? That whole incident had just been one big misunderstanding. I was relieved, though, when everybody started to laugh with Jack. I even chuckled along a bit, albeit nervously.

"Now that you can see Jack, we're going to have some real fun!" Caleb stated, the others eagerly bobbing their heads in agreement with him.

"Okay." As they circled around me, explaining all of the cool things that Jack could do besides making it snow indoors, I caught his I and saw him wink at me and give me a thumbs up before flying off to wherever. As voices shot out at me from all different angles, surrounding me with their volume, I wished that I had his confidence.

Minutes later, as I stood apprehensively at the top of a steeply sloped street coated in a fresh, thick layer of ice, I had to wonder if it wasn't confidence but craziness that he possessed.

I gulped and turned to Jamie, whispering only to him so that I wouldn't sound like a wimp to the others. "Is this safe?" I wondered.

"Totally," he replied, sure beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"What about cars? What if I fall off?"

"No one is going to be driving in this weather. Jack makes sure of that. In the unlikely event that you do fall off, you're not going to be hurt other than maybe a bruise or two. Just get back on, and you'll be fine."

"If you say so," I muttered, still not completely reassured.

"_Readysetgo!_" shouted Claude as quickly as he could, rushing right between me and Jamie with his sled and jumping right onto the ice. His twin was right behind him.

"No fair!" complained Monty, who would have gone next if he wasn't shoved roughly out of the way by Cupcake. I heard Sophie squeal happily as Pippa helped push her down the slope before following right after.

"See you at the pond!" Jamie called out to me, catching his friends' excitement like a disease. I watched him slide down the street effortlessly, but I didn't move to follow just yet. I had to be the biggest chicken ever. A big, stupid chicken: that's me! I heard the other kids whoop and holler from somewhere around the corner and felt guilty for not joining them already. It definitely sounded fun.

Eventually, I worked up enough courage to take a tentative step onto the ice, disliking how unsteady my feet were on its slippery surface. As I wobbled there, clutching my sled for dear life, Jack decided to show up. "I wondered where you were," he said

"Yeah, I-I...uh..." I stammered, fumbling around for a suitable excuse for my delay as I dropped down to my knees on the ice and positioned myself on the sled, doing what I could to mentally prepare myself to go down the hill.

"Are you scared?" he asked.

"I'm sorry. What?"

"You _are_ scared," he concluded, and I drew my scarf up to hide an ashamed blush and an unbecoming pout. "It's really a lot of fun. I'll be around, so nothing bad can happen to you."

I couldn't help it. I rolled my eyes at that last part, wondering when he had ever given me a real reason to trust him with my life.

He caught it, and the mischievous smile he gave me in response set off one-too-many alarm bells in my head. "I think all you need is a little push," he said. My eyes widened, and before I could even manage a muffled protest around my scarf, a whack of his staff on the back of my sled sent me rocketing down the hill with a terrified shriek.

The wind whipped against my face, and I was grateful for the fact that my hair was pulled back. Otherwise, it would have gotten caught up in the wind's excitement and would have started slapping me, as well. The wind was mean enough by itself, and I hadn't even gotten halfway down the street before it ripped my hat off. I tried to turn my body to see where it had fallen, but the sled veered so badly when I did that I immediately stiffened back up to straighten my course.

I had never been one for thrill rides at amusement parks. The fear always seemed to overpower the adrenaline rush, and on the few occasions that friends had dragged me onto roller coasters with them, I had gotten off with wobbly, numb legs, rushing to throw up into the nearest trash can. So, as you can imagine, I wasn't terribly pleased with being forced into this. At least roller coasters had seat belts or lap bars or harnesses. I had to rely on the strength of my own two hands to keep me on this ride, and from the pain shooting through my right hand, I could only imagine last night's bruise spreading because of my knuckle-whitening grip on the edge of the sled.

I approached the first turn, and I squeaked and held on tighter, as if my life depended on it, wondering how the heck I was supposed to keep from falling off of the sled or skidding off of the icy track. As I drew even closer, though, I noticed a sloping wall of ice around the original track to keep me from doing just that. My speed shot me up the wall and back down in a graceful arc, bringing me around the corner with no injuries to speak of. To my great surprise, I caught myself laughing afterward. That had actually been kind of fun, almost like a water slide, and I was okay with those for the most part.

A second later, I choked on that same laughter as I stared wide-eyed at what was ahead.

For some extra "fun," Jack must have added an icy ramp to the track. It was only a small jump, and I knew in my head that the other kids had gone over it before me, proving it to be safe, but I squirmed and panicked just the same. I couldn't bring myself to abandon ship and jump off of my sled, though, and before I could right myself or regain my grip of steel, I was already in the air. For a moment, I was weightless as I flew, but cruel gravity took hold before long. I felt my heart drop to my stomach as I began my descent and saw that I was coming down at just the wrong angle because of my tossing and turning on the sled. I wasn't going to make it.

I shut my eyes and waited for the crash that never came.

I felt the impact of the sled against the ice, and it definitely wasn't the most graceful landing in the world, but at least I was still safe on the sled. I finally righted myself and opened my eyes in time to see Jack magically correcting the slope of the ramp to catch my sled safely. He winked as if to say, "I told you that I wouldn't let anything bad happen," before speeding off down the track and out of sight, possible to rid the ride of any more thrills that I wouldn't want to experience. Had that been a loop-de-loop up ahead? Well, I never came across one.

Despite how my heart still thudded in my chest from my almost painful experience, I laughed. The sound was quiet and breathless, but I laughed simply out of relief that I was alright. Sometimes, you just need to laugh for that reason alone, but once the sound left me, I found myself unable to rein it back it, all of the thrill and adrenaline coursing inside me finally finding sweet, sweet release, and I realized after a minute that I wasn't just laughing from relief anymore. I was having fun.

Every twist and turn brought a new thrill, and for once, I allowed myself to enjoy it, knowing that I would be safe. Jack was there, and he had proven that he wouldn't let me fall. He was responsible in that way, I guess. I was glad that fun didn't leave much room for thinking. Otherwise, I might have mentally scolded myself for trusting too easily.

Eventually, the end of the track came into view, cutting off just before a small, frozen pond where the other kids stood waiting. It abruptly came to my attention that I didn't know how to stop. I passed the end of the track, skidded across the icy surface of the pond, and flew face-first into a snowdrift on the other side. I heard the other kids' muffled exclamations through the snow, and as I dug my head out for the second time that week, I wondered if this was going to become a regular thing.

My laughter completely subsided after a few frantic moments of trying to wrangle it in, but I was still left breathless from the truly unique sled ride I had just experienced. I gagged on snow but cleared my vision in time to see Jack flying in, clearing away the ice track with a wave of his staff. I cautiously tip-toed down to the frozen pond from my crash site and promptly slipped and fell on my butt, which brought on a cacophony of laughter from everyone, causing me to blush from embarrassment. I sniffled and tried to haul myself to my feet only to end up on my hands and knees, facing my faint, warped reflection in the ice. Even with the blurriness of the image, I cringed at how wild my hair had become, several strands having been knocked loose from the ride.

Jack flew over to me then and offered his hand to help me up, which I gladly took before wincing and pulling back as he grasped my hand firmly in his. I cradled my right hand against my heart, gritting my teeth to keep from crying out. It almost seemed to hurt worse than before. Gripping the sled tightly probably hadn't helped its condition. "Sorry," Jack apologized, reaching for my other hand. "Is your hand still bothering you?"

I had to bite my tongue to hold back a sarcastic remark. Of course, it was still bothering me! Why else would I have done that? "A little, but it's fine," I muttered, allowing him to help me up. Slowly, I brought myself to an awkward standing position, still wobbling precariously on the slippery ice. I couldn't yet let go of Jack's hand, or I was sure to fall right back down. I tried to take a step forward but nearly fell again, having to brace myself against Jack and grip his hand tighter to keep upright. I could feel his coldness even through my many layers, and realizing how uncomfortably close we were, I delicately shifted slightly away without completely letting go of his hand, which by itself, was pretty awkward for me.

The others had already slid over to solid ground and were waiting on us to join them. "Come on, Darian! It's easy! Just put one foot in front of the other!" Jamie cheered. This brought a smile to my face as I recalled our movie night. I started to relax a little while I hummed the happy, catchy tune from _Santa Clause Is Coming To Town_. Jack flew in front of me, gently took both of my hands, and guided me forward while I took a few unsteady steps. (The irony of the fact that the actual "Winter Warlock" - not that he would ever enjoy being called that - was the one leading was not lost on me.)

Soon enough, we reached the dirt trail that led to the pond that had been covered by an ice track not five minutes ago. My legs still shook on this solid ground, probably due to the fact that the rush of adrenaline from the sled ride had passed, leaving me feeling a bit weary. Jack fetched my sled and flew back, calling, "Who wants to go again?" He was answered with cheers and one "no, thank you" from me.

"I'm just a little tired after last night," I explained. It wasn't a complete lie, but the real reason I wanted to head back was because of whatever bug was making me feel sick. As good as the frosty air felt, it probably wasn't the best thing for me, and I knew that I really should be staying in the stuffy warmth of the house. "I'll see you at lunch, Jamie and Sophie."

As I waved and turned to go, Jack stopped me by flying over and standing in the middle of my path. "You dropped this," he said, and he held out my hat.

"Thank you." I took it gratefully, happy that it was light enough to not cause my hand anymore pain. I didn't put it on, though. Instead, I stuffed it into my jacket pocket. It wouldn't have done me much good, anyway. My head was already white with snow, and the cap would only further ruin my hair.

"It flew in my face way back there." He gestured over his shoulder down the trail that lead back to the house.

"Sorry."

"It's nothing."

"Even so, thank you. I had fun." He grinned when I said that, showing off those perfectly white teeth of his. I couldn't help but return a small smile before heading off on my merry way.

A second later, Sophie ran up beside me, grabbing my uninjured hand. "I wanna go with you!" she insisted.

I heard no protests from the group (to be fair, a six-year-old's presence meant toning down the rambunctiousness of their fun), so I told her, "Of course!"

"Can we play princesses?" she asked while we walked.

"That sounds wonderful!" I replied. She squealed and practically dragged me the rest of the way back to the house.

**Jamie**

I watched Darian and Sophie disappear from view while the others gave Jack requests for the next sledding course. "I knew she would have more fun when she saw you. Everyone does," I commented to Jack. "I don't think I've seen her smile that wide since she got here."

"I guess she's actually pretty cool," Cupcake admitted.

"I can't believe she actually got on the sled!" exclaimed Claude.

"Yeah," added Caleb. "I thought that she would chicken out before the first jump."

"Come on, guys. Have a little faith in her," Pippa scolded. "If anything was going to freak her out, it would have been that massive loop-de-loop or the wide gap on the third jump."

"Was I the only one who thought that she would actually make it to the end?" I inquired. Only Monty slowly raised his hand, but he sheepishly put it down a second later, shaking his head.

"Jack, you settle this," said Cupcake. "How well did she take the course on her first time?"

"Pretty well," he answered. "She was a little unsteady on some parts, but the rest of the ride went smoothly." I caught his sly smile out of the corner of my eye, which informed me that he was up to something, but I didn't comment or bring it to anyone's attention for Darian's sake. I was more than happy that my friends were beginning to warm up to her.

"And now, she's babysitting Sophie," Claude pointed out.

"We can go more extreme without her!" yelled Caleb. "No offense to your sister, Jamie."

"None taken. She does get in the way sometimes."

"Some people just require a different kind of fun. Their idea of fun can differ greatly from someone else's," Jack remarked about Sophie, or so I assumed.

There was a double meaning in that, for sure.

**(I seriously can't believe how long this chapter got. It was supposed to only be half of a chapter, but after seeing how big this one part ended up, I decided to split up the two parts, which was kind of sad because I really wanted to get to a part I've been wanting to type since I started this story. What is it, you ask? Well, like me, you're just going to have to wait until the next chapter is finished. Oh well, back to this one. Darian just can't seem to catch a break, but it's nice to see her start to loosen up just a little, right? Sometimes you just need a little push. As always, favorite, follow, and review!)**


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